


you're a boy (and i'm a girl)

by star_sky_earth



Series: sleep [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Body Image, Body Worship, Brother/Sister Incest, Consent Issues, Dirty Talk, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Somnophilia, Incest, Jealousy, Possessive Behavior, Praise Kink, Pseudo-Incest, The 100 (TV) Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-01-14 14:29:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/star_sky_earth/pseuds/star_sky_earth
Summary: Bellamy is insatiable. Clarke couldn’t have imagined it before, could never have grasped the extent of his hunger for her, almost terrifying in both its intensity and scale. How her own hunger would rise to meet it, both of them pushing each other to greater and greater heights of insanity, spiralling up to where the air runs thin and there’s nothing left to hold on to delirium and the knowledge of the fall waiting for them below.The girl she’d been before would have had no frame of reference for anything like this, she thinks.Madness can’t be explained, only experienced.





	you're a boy (and i'm a girl)

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, you just want to jump right in but I do have a couple of tiny notes first!
> 
> 1\. Once again, I find myself apologising for the delay in posting! I hope you didn't give up on me (or our babies)! Special shout out to the poor anons on tumblr who I kept promising an update and then...not updating. Thanks for hanging in there!
> 
> 2\. I've had some questions on tumblr about the end pairing of this fic. I've been avoiding answering this directly (probably stupidly) because I was worried about spoiling the plot, but I've realised that it's not fair to make people anxious about the ending, or keep people reading something that they ultimately won't be happy with. So! To clear any confusion, this is definitely a Bellamy/Clarke love story, however please be aware that all the tags and pairings are there for a reason, either for certain elements or certain scenes (some upcoming).
> 
> 3\. Enjoy these 28,000 words of (almost total) porn! This will make no sense if you haven't read the previous parts in the series! 
> 
> If you like it, please make sure you subscribe to the series (or me) and not this specific fic which is complete and will not be updated <3

The first time that Clarke and Bellamy made love, he’d told her that he didn’t know how he was going to keep his mouth off her. That he couldn’t think about anything else but touching her. 

At the time, Clarke had thought that his words were nothing more than idle dirty talk. Or perhaps she would have thought that, if she’d been capable of thinking anything at all, still trembling from the impact of two shattering orgasms in quick succession, caught up in licking the taste of her own pussy off his tongue, barely able to remember her own name. 

Just more of the obscene things that Bellamy likes to whisper when he touches her, the way that he layers words on filthy words on skin until she thinks that she’s going mad from it, her entire world narrowing down to the rasp of his voice in her ear and his hands over her body.

Now, almost two months later, Clarke can finally see Bellamy’s words for what they were. 

\- 

Bellamy is insatiable. She couldn’t have imagined it before, could never have grasped the extent of his hunger for her, almost terrifying in both its intensity and scale. How her own hunger would rise to meet it, both of them pushing each other to greater and greater heights of insanity, spiralling up to where the air runs thin and there’s nothing left to hold on to delirium and the knowledge of the fall waiting for them below. 

The girl she’d been before would have had no frame of reference for anything like this, she thinks. 

Madness can’t be explained, only experienced.

\- 

Clarke couldn’t count how many times they’ve fucked since this thing started between them. It’s not that she doesn’t remember. How could she forget, when each desperate, tender time is branded permanently on her memory and her body, ever-changing constellations of bruises over her skin to map and explore each time she showers. Her early soreness has faded, only to be replaced by a newly heightened awareness of her body, sensitive nerve endings that stir echoes of Bellamy’s touch with every movement. 

But it’s impossible to count when each time feels like a continuation of the time before it, an endless cycle of frantic need and temporary relief that can’t be easily untangled, can’t be broken up into neat and distinct pieces. They break apart reluctantly, only to crash back together like waves crashing against a shore, white foam water breaking against sheer cliff face. Sound and fury and violent abandon, translated into the clash of mouths and the red lined drag of nails on skin. Tension building, implacable and inevitable, the shock of pleasure like plunging into icy ocean depths, the breathless hit of cold water. Struggling to break the surface, a fight for breath that never comes, fleeting seconds of respite before being dragged back below dark waves. 

All the brute force and violence of the tides, destructive and life-changing, and yet somehow still only a furious distraction from the slower, more fundamental forces of combustion and erosion that reshape entire tectonic plates, redraw whole landscapes. Something deeper, too, taking place in both their bodies, each reforming the other, hard edges wearing away until they fit together in two perfect halves, neither whole on their own. 

Clarke can barely remember what it felt like, before she fucked him. Who she’d been. 

Before, she’d lived under the illusion that her body was a solid thing made up of bone and blood and muscle, almost frustrating in its physicality, its stubborn insistence on taking up (too much) space. Now she finds her body transmuted, ever-shifting, intangible and carried away like smoke on the air. A constant state of liquid melt, open and sweet. The boundaries of her flesh ebb and flow, her body yielding, always ready for him. 

Kissing Bellamy feels like breathing, like two feet firmly on the ground after a lifetime spent in space. She only feels real when she’s under him, the steady and undeniable mass of his body pressing her into the squeaking mattress. If her body has any solid shape now, it only takes form when she’s with him. Her flesh exists as clay moulded under his hands, his fingerprints pressed into her skin until the fact of his creation runs through her like a layers through rock. 

Clarke thinks about it all the time. She drifts away during class, finds herself gazing blindly out of bus windows, the grating noise of chalk on wood fading into the squeak of a protesting bed frame, the play of weak afternoon light over glass transforming into the rippling of shadows over skin, the twisting of white sheets. Comes back to herself in the shower, staring blankly at wet tile, fingers pruned and conditioner long since rinsed out. Snaps back into conversations with Octavia halfway through, her friend’s words and gestures reduced to empty mime as Clarke tries to remember what they were talking about. 

Bellamy groans for how wet she is every time he gets his hand between her legs, bites his praise into the inner skin of her thigh, a thousand whispered expletives about how much he loves her sweet little cunt, always so good for him, so ready. It might be embarrassing, if she didn’t know that it was exactly the same for him. If Bellamy wasn’t already hard every time she reached for him, on the edge, straining and begging for her after seconds of the lightest touch.

He’s different now, her dependable almost-big-brother. Something has shifted in the lines of his face, the way he carries himself, like a knife whetted down to its sharpest point, pared down to his basest and most necessary elements, the line between man and animal, intelligence and instinct wearing thin. Still Bellamy, but somehow more _Bellamy_ than ever before. He grins wider, laughs easier, shouts louder, coddles and aggravates Octavia in turns until she whirls round and snaps at him in frustration. Bellamy, turned up to eleven, all his appetites unrestrained, emotions running closer to the surface than ever before, unchecked. 

He can’t stay in one place, fuelled by a restless energy, prowls around the house like a caged animal when he’s not at work, seemingly caught between his unwillingness to leave Clarke and his inability to touch her when his sister’s there. He’s gaining mass at an alarming rate, shoulders broadening and arms thickening with heavy muscle, frustration driving him to work the punching bag in the back yard until the sun goes down and his body shakes from exertion. That’s when Bellamy comes to find her, hunts her down with dark ember eyes that threaten to ignite the air between them, raw need setting his foot tapping on the floor, his fingers drumming against his thigh. The second they’re alone he pounces, crowds her against the nearest surface, his mouth rough on hers, breath coming hard and fast. His fingers in her cunt, knuckles still swollen from impact. 

Clarke feels consumed. Caught up and obsessed, so far gone on him that sometimes she even forgets to be guilty, her mind wiped clean of all the things that she’s done to him under cover of darkness. Like an addict she lurches between high of forgetting and the low of remembrance, the bliss of each high rivalled only by the low that succeeds it, the sick rush of memory flooding back to take up more space in her chest each time. It only drives her back to him, the knowledge of his desire for her the one thing that can soothe the guilt that still burns in her every time she looks at him. 

\- 

_“Don’t know how I’m going to keep my mouth off you now, princess.”_

A warning, Clarke knows now. 

But what she still doesn’t know is - a warning for her, or a warning for himself?

\- 

Clarke wakes to the feel of Bellamy’s cock hard against her ass, his breath heavy against the back of her neck. He’s shifting against her slowly, rhythmically, mouthing along the line of her shoulder, her skin left damp and sensitised where he kisses her. One of his arms is under her head, serving as her pillow, but the other is heavily draped over her waist, trapping her against him. 

She doesn’t bother opening her eyes, knows even without looking that it’s still very early, a time barely worthy of being called morning. Bellamy’s an early riser, and every day so far she’s woken to find him already awake, reading quietly next to her, or just holding her as she sleeps, lost in his own thoughts. Clarke hadn’t realised how poorly he slept until she started sharing a bed with him, hadn’t known how the slightest noise or disruption would jerk him awake, hands already reaching for her in the darkness as if to reassure himself that she’s still there, safe next to him. She’s given up trying to sneak out of bed to go to the bathroom, knows that no matter how quiet she is he’ll be awake when she gets back, eyes wide and watchful in the darkness, not able to relax until he’s tucked her body neatly back into the protective curve of his own. No wonder Octavia had to get him dead drunk to touch him - there’s no way he would have slept through it, otherwise. 

Luckily, Octavia sleeps far more deeply than her brother. She sleeps right through Clarke getting out of bed each night, snoring delicately into the pillow as Clarke slips out into the cold hallway, guilty and quiet as a cheating husband of forty years. Already used to Clarke getting up hours before her, she apparently hasn’t found anything unusual about waking up to an empty bed every morning, the space next to her long since cold. 

Clarke keeps her eyes closed and her body lax as Bellamy’s hand drifts up over the front of her body, his big palm warm on her stomach, fingers splayed wide. He nuzzles into the space where her neck meets her shoulder, kisses a trail up to her ear, thrusts more firmly against her, the head of his cock already wet, pre-come smearing across the sensitive skin at the small of her back. Arousal thrums through her when his breath hitches, his hand tightening on her waist for a split-second, just a hint of the strength Bellamy carries in his body, but then he eases his grip and pulls back, his hips stilling, leaving her wanting.

Biting her lip, face half-turned into the pillow, she reaches down and grabs his hand, pulls it up her body to rest over her breast, her nipple hard against the centre of his palm. The bed shifts as Bellamy leans over her to look at her face, his breath soft against her cheek when he huffs in amusement to see her eyes still closed. 

“Morning, princess,” he rumbles in his early morning voice. “Enjoying yourself, are you?”

She nods, eyes squeezed tight, and he chuckles quietly, gently squeezes her breast, his calloused thumb sweeping over delicate skin. Bellamy thrusts against her again, deliberate, more demanding now that he knows that she’s awake, the head of his cock glancing off the line between her buttocks, nowhere close to where she wants him. She’s wet - already, still - fucked open and melted down from last night, not quite put back together yet, his come still seeping out of her when she wiggles back against him, parts her legs a little to encourage him inside her. 

“Hey,” he soothes into her ear, hips going still once more. “Just lie back, let me do all the work.”

Clarke turns her head to kiss him, frustrated, bites at his lips when he leans into her, her hand coming up to tangle in the soft curls at the nape of his neck. He pulls his hand away from her breast to rest along her jaw, ignoring her sound of displeasure, uses his thumb on her chin to pull her mouth open, kiss her deep and steady. He kisses her until she’s lightheaded and squirming, squeezing her thighs together to try and get some pressure, friction, anything, on her clit. At some point during the kiss he releases his grip on her jaw and trails his hand back down to her breast, plays her nipple between his fingers until it aches, a lazy, casual touch that still gets her breath stuttering into his mouth. 

Bellamy’s right there when she finally opens her eyes. Beautiful, hair mussed and flattened from sleep, eyes sharp and fierce, mouth slightly parted as he watches her unravel beneath him. It’s not fair how easily he works her over, how little it takes to get her desperate for him. Clarke wants to get her mouth on him, wants the length of his body vulnerable and open to her, but he only tightens her grip on her when she tries to turn around, keeps her pinned in place and facing forward. 

“Where are you going, huh?” he asks, his hand firm on her hip, leaning in to kiss along her neck. “I’ve got you now, baby. No escape.”

“Bell…” she whines. A half-hearted protest, even as she tilts her head back to give him access to her throat. “Let me turn around…I want to see you.”

Clarke pouts, ridiculous and overblown, a deliberately clumsy attempt at seduction. She has so few weapons to use against Bellamy, him with his whole arsenal of methods to undo her, make her beg and whine. All her little triumphs are nothing but Pyrrhic victories, temporary advantages that seem only to open up new ways for him to torment and tease her. By now she’s learnt enough to know that the only way to win against him is to lose, turn his own weapons against him, let him drive her insane and take himself down in the process, unable to resist the mess he’s made of her.

Bellamy groans when he pulls back and sees her expression, his eyes darkening. 

“Poor thing.” He nips her lower lip with his teeth, chases the sting away with a swipe of his tongue. His hand clamps down on her like a vise, holds her still for the slow, dirty rhythm of his hips as he grinds against her ass, his breath starting to come in little pants. “You feeling lonely?”

“Bell,” she pleads again, her voice breathy and pathetic even to her own ears. She digs her fingernails into his arm, relishes the sound when he hisses at the sting. “Come on.”

“Okay, okay.” Bellamy rests his forehead against hers, looks her in the eye. His hips never stop moving, relentless. “I’m not being fair baby, am I?”

Clarke shakes her head furiously, making him grin.

“Okay, princess.” He kisses her, quick and soft and closed-mouthed. “I’ve got you.”

She’s not expecting to feel his hand against her mouth, the tap of two fingertips on her lips, but she parts her mouth obediently, eyes locked to his as she opens up and lets his fingers inside. He watches intently as she closes her mouth around the digits, hips jerking against her as she sucks hard and flutters her tongue around his fingers, his skin like rough velvet. Clarke groans, imagining the lingering taste of her pussy on his skin, salt and sherbet.

“Fuck,” Bellamy mutters, seemingly unable to take his eyes off her hollowed out cheeks, her swollen lips.

He pulls his fingers out of her mouth, dripping with her spit, wet against the back of her thighs when he reaches down to wrap his hand around his cock. He pushes her leg up a little, rubs himself against her pussy to get himself nice and slippery, smearing the head of his cock through his own come where it’s still leaking out of her from last night.

“Yeah?” he checks, waits for her nod before he fucks into her, Clarke’s breath catching in her chest at the stretch. No matter how wet she is, how much she loves the feel of his cock inside her, the first few seconds are always a shock, breathing through the pleasurable sting as she reminds herself that she’s done this before, will do it again. 

And again, and again, the inevitability of pain no deterrent. 

Bellamy doesn’t move for a moment, knows by now that she needs a little time to adjust. Clarke can’t see his face where he’s behind her, but it doesn’t matter - she’s long since memorised the expression on his face when he first enters her, the slight quiver of his eyelids, his forehead furrowing, hard jaw softening. She likes to run her fingers across his face in the quiet seconds before he starts to really fuck her, her heart expanding as she feels his love for her made flesh, every conflicting emotion converted into the complex interplay of muscle and nerves shifting under freckled skin. 

“Fuck,” he grits out again, his breath warm against her shoulder. “What are you doing to me?”

Bellamy fucks her slow, but not gentle, grinding against her buttocks with each thrust, every nerve in her body tingling as he works her open. She’s too full and too empty at the same time, both states unbearable, the contrast even more so, like glass made too hot and cooled down too quickly, relief found only in shattering apart. 

His hips are steady but his hands are almost frantic, gliding over her skin like he wants to touch her everywhere at once, feel the force of his thrusts reverberating through her body, greedily experience every part of what he’s doing to her. He shifts so that he can cup both her breasts in his hands, pushes them up and together to create a deep cleavage, bites at the side of her neck as he fucks into her hard, the angle getting his cock right up against what she thinks is her G-spot, merciless. 

“Jesus Christ, look at you.”

One of Bellamy’s hands leaves her breasts and smoothes down over her torso, dragging the sheet down as he goes, the crisp air hitting her skin in delicious contrast to the heat of his body behind her. He rests his hand for a long moment on her tummy before he moves on down her thigh, coming to a stop just above her knee, pulling her leg up and back over his so that she’s broken open, exposed and vulnerable. Clarke moans, imagining what it would look like to an outsider, her smaller body wrapped around his larger frame, the obscenity of her pussy split around his cock. 

“Yeah, that’s it,” Bellamy encourages her, speeding up his thrusts, giving in to a wilder, more erratic rhythm. “You want me to touch you, baby?” 

“Yes,” she groans, her own hands reaching back blindly for him, searching hopelessly for something fixed to hold on to, finding nothing but sleek moving flesh. “Bell, please.”

But he remains silent, makes no move to touch her, and Clarke lets out an annoyed whine. She _hates_ it when he does this. 

“Touch my clit, Bellamy,” she says more firmly. “Make me come.”

“Good girl.” 

Bellamy thrusts into her so hard she squeaks, reaches around to brush his fingers over her clit. She inhales sharply, the position making her clit more sensitive than usual, and he eases off, uses only the very tip of his fingers to lightly tease her, even that muted sensation almost overwhelmingly good. 

Clarke comes pretty much immediately, biting down hard on Bellamy’s hand as he brings it over her mouth to muffle the noise of her climax. It’s explosive, too much, and she whimpers, her body shuddering from overstimulation. Bellamy slows down, keeps his thrusts shallow to give her space to recover, just enough to help her come down slowly without leaving her stranded, not enough to hurt. 

“Okay?” He asks, nosing against her cheek. “Want me to stop?”

“No.” She turns her head, seeks out his mouth with hers, a silent request that he fulfils easily, gathering her to him in a tight hug while he kisses her, his body still rocking into hers. Her heartbeat is thudding in her ears, fingers cramped and tingling.

“Can we - ” she starts, pulling away, and then stops, all her words just out of reach. Bellamy waits patiently, his eyes soft on her. Clarke collects herself and tries again. “On me, please.”

She gets like this in bed every so often - knows what she wants, but can’t find the words to express it, Bellamy learning by trial and error exactly what she needs and how she needs it, her mind a mess of contradictions and conflicting urges that she can’t quite untangle on her own. 

Bellamy drops a kiss to her shoulder and pulls out of her gently, letting her roll onto her front and get settled. She buries her face in the pillows and raises her arms up above her head, tilting her hips up when he gets on top of her, thrusts back into her slowly. His whole body covers her in this position, his chest pressed against her back, his forearms coming up onto the pillow to support himself, their hands entwining. An expert by now, he puts just enough weight on her to let her really feel it, but not enough to crush her. 

Sometimes Clarke needs this. Wants the sensation of being surrounded by him, covered by him, her own body barely even visible under his bulk. Not able to do anything but lie there and let Bellamy take control, do what he wants with her. Maybe she likes the idea of him using her, a little, her own orgasm over, her body soft and sated underneath him as he comes.

Clarke’s never been to church. Her mom has always been blunt on the topic of faith, telling Clarke from an early age that religion was nonsense, a refuge for people that couldn’t handle the harsh reality of life. Being under Bellamy is the closest thing to prayer she’s ever known, the peace that comes from giving yourself up to a higher power. The clean and uncomplicated joy of sacrifice.

(If there’s any other reason why she wants this, Clarke doesn’t want to know about it. She doesn’t want to think about that night, refuses to remember how it felt, Bellamy’s sleeping body under hers, spread out for her pleasure, her use. Kicks dust over the fact that if she closed her eyes, she might as well be asleep right now, the parallels between _that_ and this too raw to contemplate.) 

One day soon, she’ll have the nerve to ask him to be a little rougher with her. Get him to hold her hands tighter, settle his weight a little more firmly on her, snap his hips a fraction faster. For now, Bellamy’s mouth never leaves hers as he fucks her sweet and aching, a twinge in her neck as she twists her head round to meet his lips with her own. He’s always so careful with her in this position, frustratingly considerate. Silent, too, like he doesn’t know what to say. Or like he doesn’t trust himself to speak, the position too close, too intimate for sense.

Bellamy sets a slow pace, but even he can’t stop the heat building up, too soon, like tinder sparking alight, no room between their bodies, their skin sticky with sweat and friction. Soon enough his rhythm starts to falter, hands tightening around hers as his cock jerks, a sudden new wetness filling her, his quiet exhale barely audible above the creak of the mattress. 

Afterwards he stays on top of her, his head on the pillow behind her, their hands still tangled together. He draws patterns over the backs of her hands, her palms, traces lines up and down each one of her fingers in turn, reverent. Clarke wants to cry, sometimes, being held by him.

They lay there in silence as the morning light finally catches and deepens, the room brightening around them.

\- 

Octavia and Clarke sit on the bed, side by side, backs to the wall.

It’s late on a Tuesday night, Bellamy working at the bar. Just the two of them alone in the house. It’s cold tonight, unusually so, and the wind rattles at the windows, a chilly draft blowing through empty rooms already turned alien and unfamiliar in the darkness. 

Only their room is warm and light, if not exactly cosy, with the thin silence that settles uneasily around and between the girls. They’re watching Netflix on Clarke’s laptop, the volume just a touch too loud, overcompensating. Canned laughter and musical stings, harsh and out of place, sinking like a stone into the tension in the room. 

Clarke inwardly winces at the contrast, wonders if Octavia notices it too, if the volume is turned up on purpose or by accident. Wonders if she notices any of what’s been happening over the past few weeks, the distance that’s been slowly stretching between them, until speaking to Octavia feels like shouting across a void, her best friend nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

Personal space has always felt irrelevant to Clarke and Octavia. An afterthought, something for other people to worry about, strange adults who use words like ‘boundaries’ and ‘co-dependent’ and express themselves in rotely rehearsed I-statements. What is personal space, anyway, when you already share everything with the other person? Where do you draw boundaries, when every thought and feeling is shared before it’s even fully formed, personalities shaped by comparison and committee, two separate people only in the most base and literal sense? When, for the sake of both honesty and accuracy, every I-statement could only ever be a we-statement?

It wasn’t so long ago that they would have been draped over and across each other, legs entangled, enmeshed. For warmth and reassurance and the last remnants of childhood, their bodies settling together in old familiar configurations, the well worn grooves of habit and routine. Octavia’s head resting on Clarke’s shoulder, her thick dark hair tickling Clarke’s nose, her slight weight more comforting than any blanket.

Now, the two girls sit like strangers, neither one truly at ease, eight full regulation inches between them. The fundamental geometry of their friendship has changed, every collapsed and relaxed contour reshaped and straightened, hardened. Their backs stiff against the faded wallpaper, elbows at pointed right angles like barricades, legs laid out in perpendicular lines. Personal space, acres of it, too wide to reach across.

“I’m bored,” Octavia announces. She shifts restlessly against the covers, drums her ankles lightly on the mattress like a toddler. One of her socks is twisted round so the empty heel sits on top of her foot, and Clarke wants to reach down and fix it. Two months ago she would have leaned down to sort it out without even thinking about it, the action as easy as adjusting her own clothing, Octavia’s body nothing more than an extension of her own. Now, she doesn’t move, just lets the irritation sit in her mind, an itch at the edge of her consciousness. 

Clarke steadies herself, smiles. “You’re always bored.”

“Life is always boring,” Octavia counters. She looks at Clarke, expectant, one eyebrow already raised in anticipation of her reply.

Clarke smiles again, awkwardly. She can already feel the conversation wilting as she frantically searches for a response. Anything, to keep the rhythm going. 

“What do you want to do?” she finally responds.

It’s the wrong response. Octavia turns back to the laptop, fiddles with a loose thread on the hem of her top. Her voice is flat when she speaks again, disappointed. 

“I don’t know. Something.”

Once, Clarke would have known exactly what to say. Would have known that her best friend was feeling restless without her even saying the words, could have read it in the tension in her voice, the tilt of her shoulders. The ragged skin around her fingernails, always the first sign that Octavia was bored or stressed, the pressure starting to build as all her energy turned inward, tripping over the line from charming to destructive. Would have known exactly how to soothe Octavia, whether she needed a reason to calm down or encouragement to be bad, whether she was looking for a sister or an accomplice.

Clarke still sees all the signs. She can read Octavia like a book, a second language she’s incapable of forgetting, written into her bones. And so she knows that something else is wrong, something deeper and more unsettling than boredom taking hold in her friend’s mind. That, perhaps, even if she doesn’t know what’s going on with Clarke and Bellamy, Octavia has sensed a change in the air, like an animal sensing an earthquake. That, maybe, she’s finally feeling the impact of what they did to her brother, the guilt starting to eat away at her like rust corroding metal. 

What she doesn’t see is what to do next. How to reach out to Octavia and just talk to her, breach the walls between them, one brick higher every day. 

They used to fill endless hours with the most mundane details and trivia, in-jokes and obscure references, their very own twin language. Clarke couldn’t even have said what they talked about most days, aside from everything. She’d been able to make Octavia laugh with a look, finish her sentences before she even began them. Now, she struggles to find anything to say to her best friend, out of step, forced to consciously consider something that used to be automatic, like suddenly becoming aware of your own breathing and forgetting how to do it. Conversations meander into dead ends and die, references dropped or missed, words half-caught and losing all meaning by the second or third repetition. Clarke’s phone is no longer a way to communicate with Octavia - it's a barrier, a distraction. She’s getting a strain in her left thumb from the endless scrolling though her social media feeds, avoiding her friend’s eye. 

Octavia knowing that she has feelings for Bellamy should be a relief. One less secret for Clarke to keep, no worry that she’ll betray herself with her soft eyes, her nervous fidgeting, the way that she helplessly gravitates towards Bellamy as soon as he enters the room, her internal compass reset. It gives her the freedom to act just as lovesick and pathetic as Octavia expects her to be. 

But it’s only made things worse somehow, the partial truth more damaging than a complete lie. Destabilising, a tiny fracture that builds tension across the whole structure, the edifice of lies between them. A microscopic imperfection with the power to reduce an entire building to rubble. Clarke feels like she can’t say anything, for fear of revealing everything. 

And she _wants_ to say something. She misses her best friend with all the misery of the lonely little girl she’d been when they first met. Spending so much time with Bellamy alone is wonderful but disorientating. Like a cheating spouse who showers their betrayed partner with affection, Clarke has never loved Octavia, never yearned to be close to her as much as she does now, when she thinks that she’s losing her. Octavia was the first person to love Clarke in the way that she needed to be loved. Now, when Clarke’s whole world has been turned upside down, disassembled and reset, Octavia is the only person who could possibly understand any of what Clarke is feeling. How the guilt and the love and the pain is tied up in knots inside her, impossible to tease out into separate strands. 

Octavia is the only other person in the world who loves Bellamy as much as she does.

The only other person in the world who has hurt him as much as she has.

“What’s up?”

Clarke’s head jerks up, shocked out of her own thoughts. “What?”

“I said, what’s up?” Octavia reaches over and shuts the laptop lid, cutting off a credits sequence mid-flow. The abrupt absence of noise is jarring, violent almost. She spins round to face Clarke, crossing her legs, hands brought up to rest on her bony knees like she’s about to meditate. “I’m sick of this. Talk to me. You never talk to me anymore.”

Clarke slowly turns and crosses her own legs, hesitantly raises her face to Octavia. She feels sick, her heart pounding in her chest, a cold drop in her stomach. After longing for something, anything, to break the silence, she finds herself wanting nothing more than to recede back into it, back under the cover of politeness. Deniability. It takes more effort than she wants to acknowledge to fight her instinct to run away, the urge to make an excuse to leave and just go.

When she looks at Octavia, she’s shocked to see that she looks nervous too. Her eyes shift away when Clarke tries to meet them, her bottom lip held in her teeth, hands drifting back to her lap to play with the same loose thread on her top. 

Octavia is never nervous. Angry, upset, scared, yes. But nervous is different - nervous is the feeling of someone who’s thinking more than one step ahead, someone who’s trying to keep their emotions in check, holding back. Octavia never holds back. Octavia doesn’t do nervous. This is uncharted territory for both of them. 

Clarke’s own fear ratchets up a notch. She wishes Bellamy was there.

Still looking down, Octavia reaches out and takes Clarke’s hand, holding it between both of her own in her lap. Her friend’s hands are cool, her touch careful as she traces over Clarke’s chipped nail varnish, the little patch of dry skin between her second and third fingers.

“You haven’t been using your cream. This is getting bad again.”

Clarke nods. Her throat feels clammed up, her mouth dry and useless like it’s been stuffed with cotton, like she couldn’t speak if she tried.

Octavia sighs. Not her usual sigh, full of derision and scorn. Clarke hears only resignation and exhaustion in her friend’s exhale.

“I’m sorry.” Octavia’s voice has never sounded so small, so unlike herself. “What I said to you about Bellamy…I was being a bitch. Are you okay?” 

Octavia looks up, then, and they make eye contact for the first time in what feels like forever. Clarke takes it all in - the dark circles under her friend’s eyes, the dullness of her skin, her chapped lips. Hair scraped back in a utilitarian ponytail, too greasy to pass as a fashion choice. Octavia looks worn down, older. Different, like it’s not just distance that’s been separating them recently but something more foreboding, both of them developing into new people, strangers to one another. Like they could pass each other on the street in a year’s time and not recognise each other.

“You’ve been so weird recently,” Octavia adds. She smiles wryly, and now Clarke sees her best friend again, the glint in her eye, acerbic and bittersweet. “Thought you’d be used to me being a bitch by now.”

That shocks a little laugh of indignation out of Clarke, her body relaxing, finally. She slouches, the lines of her body softening, shoulders loosening, the release of tension almost better than an orgasm. Octavia’s smile breaks out into a full grin, and she squeezes Clarke’s hand gently. 

“I know, right?” Clarke responds, rolling her eyes. 

Her heart lifts as they smile at each other, just a hint of their old playfulness shining through. It’s still there, underneath. Their friendship, chipped and faded but still intact, just waiting to be dug out from under all the layers of secrets and lies heaped upon it. 

She knows what she needs to do. What she needs to tell Octavia, now, before things get any more complicated, any more twisted, any more impossible to explain. They can face up to this together, the two of them. Work it out together. 

“I’m sorry.”

Clarke reaches out with her free hand, puts it on top of their entwined hands in Octavia’s lap.

She’s terrified, but it’s exhilarating too, the prospect of finally coming clean, telling Octavia everything. Like putting everything on red and spinning the roulette wheel, handing herself over to an unknowable outcome. She almost can’t believe that she’s really going to do it, the idea so out of character that it feels like someone else has taken over, an out of body experience. 

_Deep breath._

“Octavia - ”

Something flashes across Octavia’s face as she leans in closer, too fast to decipher, some unintelligible emotion that throws Clarke off. Nothing more than the flicker of an eyelid, the twitch of a lip, a unconscious reaction too small to even acknowledge.

“I- ”

“Girls?” Bellamy’s voice echoes through the house, the front door slamming shut with a rattling crash that shakes the walls. “Why isn’t this door locked?”

Clarke glances at the alarm clock on Octavia’s nightstand. 11.30pm. Bellamy’s home early.

She’s never felt anything like the relief that floods through her at that moment, the vicious self-loathing that follows swiftly on its heels. She hates herself, how weak she is, all her resolve crumbling away into nothing the second that she sees an easy way out.

The second that she sees Bellamy.

“Clarke?” Octavia prompts, their hands still entwined. “What were you going to say?”

“Clarke?” Bellamy shouts at the same time. “You here?”

Clarke looks at Octavia. Her eyebrows are furrowed, lines deepening with every second that Clarke stays silent, a growing frown drawing in the corners of her mouth. Her hands tighten on Clarke’s, almost imperceptible, the slightest tug towards her, a fruitless attempt to keep Clarke’s focus, keep her there with her.

_I’m sorry._

“Clarke, don’t - ”

‘Bell?” Clarke shouts. She pulls her hands away from Octavia, turns to the doorway. “We’re in here.”

Bellamy’s there before she’s even finished speaking, hovering just in the hallway, half hidden in the shadows. He brings the cold air in with him, the smell of ozone and leather, and Clarke shivers, her skin prickling.

“Didn’t I tell you to always check the doors before you go to bed?” he grumbles. “And what are you two doing up anyway? It’s a school night.”

As if Clarke won’t be in his bed and under him in an hour, hasn’t seen in the dawn with him too many times to count, pale sunlight turning his skin every shade of copper and bronze as she begs for his cock inside her. Clarke bites her lip, already caught up in the things that she wants to do to him, the things that she wants him to make her do.

There’s a flurry of motion next to her as Octavia stands up, her movements jerky with anger. 

“You gonna choose one thing to tell us off for, big brother?” she hisses, venomous. “Or is everything our fault?”

“O,” Bellamy warns, low and pissed off, clearly no idea what he’s stepped into. It’s too close to how he sounds in bed, sparks memories of that same rasping growl wrapped around filthy words and gentle obscenities, and Clarke’s already getting wet, all her wires crossed and confused. 

She wishes he would step forward into the lit room, hungry for the sight of him.

“Sorry, I forgot.” Octavia rummages furiously through the dresser, slams the drawer shut as she straightens up, hairbrush in hand. The bottles on the dresser rattle and shake. “It’s not _our_ fault, is it? It’s _my_ fault. Not Clarke, your little saint.”

She spits out the last words, and Clarke flinches.

Bellamy comes closer, just a little. His face is still shadowed enough that Clarke can’t see his expression clearly, but now at least she can see his hands raised in surrender, his wide palms open and pleading. “Octavia, come on. Don’t be like that.”

“Fuck you,” Octavia retorts, angrily heading towards him where he hovers in the doorway. “I’m going to the bathroom, if that’s okay - ”

She stops dead. 

“Bell, what happened?” All the anger drained from her voice, nothing left but concern, confusion. She squints into the darkness at something Clarke can’t see, fumbles her hairbrush onto the closest surface. Doesn’t even notice when it falls off, landing on the soft carpet.

Clarke sits up, chest tight with fear.

“O, it’s fine, it’s nothing,” Bellamy protests as Octavia takes his hand, drags him into the bedroom. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

His voice is calm, his words reassuring, but Clarke feels anything but calm and reassured as she takes in the cut over his eyebrow, the dried blood down the side of his face, the vivid purple bruise forming around his eye. 

Octavia pulls Bellamy over to the desk chair, pulls his jacket down and off his shoulders. Her face is blank, expressionless, but Clarke knows that she’s freaking out. The harsh ceiling light throws Bellamy’s face into stark relief, the hair at his temple matted with dark blood.

“What happened?” Octavia repeats. She sounds like a little girl, knocked back into childhood by the idea that something could happen to Bellamy, that someone other than her could hurt him. She reaches out to touch the bruise and Bellamy hisses in pain, catches her hand in his. 

He doesn’t let go, knows even better than Clarke how badly Octavia is taking this. 

“Some dick at the bar, putting his hand up a girl’s skirt. Didn’t like it when I caught him. Definitely didn’t like it when I kicked him out.” Bellamy laughs, dry and humourless.

Clarke stands up, makes her way over to stand next to Octavia. The cut looks worse close up, swollen and jagged, painful as hell. It probably needs a couple of stitches, or at least those little white strips she’s seen in the hospital.

“You need to clean it out,” she advises, ignores Octavia’s glare, the way her friend shifts away from her.

“Does it hurt?” Octavia asks.

“It looks worse than it is,” Bellamy replies, effortlessly dodging the question. His eyes flick between the two girls standing over him. “It was a lucky hit - fucker had a pinky ring, caught me at the wrong angle. He went down easy after that. They just sent me home to get cleaned up, it was a pretty quiet night aside from that.”

His words indicate nothing but relief, but there’s disappointment in his face, frustration radiating off him in waves. The anti-climax of a fight cut short, thwarted justice. 

_Fight or flight._

The most basic of human instincts. What do you do with all that excess energy when you can’t do either?

Her eyes meet Bellamy’s, heat rushing through her like the temperature’s just shot up ten degrees. Everything fades away - the interrupted confrontation with Octavia, concern over his injury, the roiling mess of emotions in her chest. All of it receding into a dreamlike haze, leaving only Bellamy in sharp definition, the stickiness between her legs.

You fuck, it turns out.

\- 

Bellamy’s waiting for her when she sneaks out of Octavia’s bed later, barely lets her get his bedroom door shut before he slams her against the wall, one hand already reaching into her shorts. Their lips meet in something that’s more bite than kiss, Bellamy growling into her mouth as he touches her where she’s already dripping for him, one finger delicately circling her swollen clit.

Clarke allows herself a minute before she pushes at his shoulders and he puts her back down. Quietly, she leads him to the bathroom, motions him to sit on the closed toilet lid while she gets out the first aid kit. Closes the door, blushing. 

Indulgent, Bellamy lets her carefully and methodically clean out his cut, smooth arnica cream over the developing bruise with featherlight fingers. He doesn’t make a sound while she takes care of him, even when she knows it hurts, sits quiet and patient while she treats the wound. When she’s done she runs her fingers through his hair and kisses him, then gets to her knees.

Indulgent, Bellamy lets her carefully and methodically suck his cock, the scent of antiseptic in the air, cold tile hard against her knees.

Clarke’s good at it now. Long hours of practice with his cock in her mouth, enjoying the thick weight of it, all his little noises and inhales, his breath tripping in his throat as she swallows him down. The way he kisses her afterwards, traces his fingers over her lips, eyes dark and shadowed.

Bellamy jerks violently when he comes, body folding forward over her, one hand clenched white and bloodless on the towel rail. His hand is heavy and reassuring on the back of her head, guiding her through it, helping her back up when she struggles to stand, her knees stiff and cold after long minutes kneeling on the tile. 

He reaches out and cups her, the heel of his palm against her clit, thick fingers slotting just right against her cunt. She marvels at how easily they fit together, the neat jigsaw of all their lines and curves. Made for each other. 

“What about you?”

She rocks against his hand to feel the strength of him, the resistance of his muscles. Desire is hot and heavy in her body like molten lead. Anticipation, denial, shades of sensation more complex than simple pleasure. Richer, darker. She wants to stay like this forever, suspended like this, wanting him. 

Clarke shakes her head.

“I’m good.”

\- 

A couple of days later, the house is mostly back to normal.

Bellamy’s eye is a vicious dark purple, the cut healing in a twisted line that Clarke’s pretty sure is going to scar. It’s not a big wound, but the skin is in that spot is particularly thin, and he’s not taking as much care of it as she would hope. He shrugs off her suggestion that he get checked out, pops a couple of aspirin when his eye aches, gets back to work the next day. The bar keeps him on stock and door duty, figuring that no matter how handsome Bellamy is, a nasty black eye is sure to put off the young women they rely on for tips.

Clarke isn’t so sure. She doesn’t like the idea of Bellamy being in pain, sure, but a not insignificant part of her thinks he looks even more attractive like this, all roughed up and and bruised. 

Bad boys get her pussy wet, apparently.

Fussing over Bellamy is a welcome distraction from Octavia, who hasn’t forgiven her for running away from their conversation. Clarke had been worried that Octavia would try to corner her again, workshopping various excuses and explanations in her head just in case, but she hadn’t considered that her best friend would just completely ignore her. Octavia circles Clarke like a scalded cat, never letting her get too close, leaving the room every time it looks like they might be left alone together.

The only significant time they spend together is the brief interlude in bed between Octavia falling asleep and Clarke slipping out to find Bellamy. Clarke lies there each night, eyes on Octavia’s turned back, just listening to the steady rhythm of her breath, slow and peaceful, wondering how long it will take her friend to forgive her. For this, for everything. 

How long it will take for Clarke to forgive herself. 

\- 

Clarke’s sat at the kitchen table, attempting to concentrate on her history reading, ignoring the insistent nudge of Bellamy’s foot against her ankle. 

“Bell,” she reprimands him. “I have to get this done.”

“What?” Bellamy is an alarmingly good actor. In another life he’d be a movie star, flashing that winning grin on red carpets in front of popping camera bulbs, winning the adoration of a million screaming teenage girls. In this life he has the adoration of only one teenage girl and he’s sat opposite her, eyes wide and surprised, almost indignant. He raises a hand to his chest, points to himself as if in shock at her accusation. 

The innocent act would probably work better if he didn’t look like he’d just got out of a back-alley brawl. 

And if he hadn’t been trying to engage her in footsie for the last five minutes, tracing distracting lines up her calf every time she looked down at her textbook. 

Octavia’s in the shower, pop music blaring over the sound of rushing water. Even if she got out of the shower now, they’d have plenty of warning before she came into the kitchen. But still. Clarke needs to get this reading done. She’s got a life - she just can’t drop whatever she’s doing every time Bellamy gets that look in his eye. 

Only, like, 80% of the time, tops. That sounds reasonable.

“I need to do this reading for tomorrow,” she reminds him, pointing her highlighter for emphasis. “You’re not helping.”

Bellamy grins, all traces of innocence gone. “Do you _need_ me to help, princess?”

“That’s not what I meant. Bellamy, what are you doing, wait - ” Clarke protests as Bellamy gets up and moves round the table to the chair next to her, much closer than he was before. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I thought I was helping,” Bellamy replies, eyes lighting up, absurdly pleased with his horrible dad joke. 

Clarke rolls her eyes.

“Let me see.” Bellamy leans over to look at her textbook, rests one big hand on her thigh under the table. “You know, I’m very experienced in this area.”

He moves his hand up to the crease between her thigh and her abdomen, his little and ring fingers up against her pussy, exerting the tiniest amount of pressure. Not anywhere near enough to get her off, just enough to distract her, carefully calculated to get her mouth falling open, all thoughts of the Weimar Republic floating away. 

“What do you think?” Bellamy whispers in her ear. “Do you want me to show you?”

“I hate you.” Clarke opens her legs so that he can rub her a little harder. 

Bellamy leans in for the kiss just as the doorbell goes.

“Fuck,” he swears against her cheek. “Don’t move, baby, I’ll just be a second.”

Clarke stays seated while Bellamy goes to deal with whoever is at the door. 

_Why pretend_ , she thinks to herself as she closes her book and recaps her highlighter. Sends up a silent prayer that Octavia decides to shave her legs today. 

Bellamy can do a lot with an extra five minutes, she’s learned.

“Clarke?” Bellamy calls from the hallway. “It’s for you.”

Surprised, Clarke collects herself and steps cautiously out of the kitchen. She only knows two people, and they’re both already in the house.

Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of her mom standing next to Bellamy, both of them looking intensely uncomfortable. 

Fuck. Three people.

“Clarke?” Abby ventures. “How are you, honey?”

She glances up at Bellamy, her smile faltering, and steps forward towards Clarke. Instinctively Clarke pulls back, irrationally convinced that Abby is going to go in for a hug. She should know better by now. Her mom just stands in the middle of the hallway, looking so out of place that Clarke wants to laugh, her tastefully expensive clothing almost inappropriate set against the clatter and clutter of the Blake house. 

_Should have worn your free clinic clothes_ , she thinks. 

“I’m fine,” she mumbles. “What do you want?”

“Right,” Abby responds, seemingly lost for words. She looks around the hallway, pulls her jacket a little tighter around her, like she’s worried that she might accidentally touch something dirty, like _poor_ is a contagious disease. It’s an automatic gesture. She probably doesn’t even notice she’s done it. Clarke notices though.

Bellamy notices too. He crosses his arms against his chest, lips pressing into a thin line as he clenches his jaw.

“Shall we go into the living room?” Abby suggests. When in doubt she always slips into her default position, which is being in charge of whoever’s around her. There’s no situation that Abby won’t treat like a medical problem, given the chance. 

They go through into the living room, and Clarke watches as Abby settles herself delicately into the exact middle of the couch. She rocks back a little when she sits down, not used to the sudden give of the cushions, springs long since given out. 

Clarke takes the armchair, while Bellamy leans against the doorframe like a bouncer. His face is stormy when she looks at him, eyes cold and hard. She wonders how much it would take for him to throw Abby out. If her mom knows that she’s on thin ice just being here. 

It’s awkward, both of them waiting for the other to speak first. Abby clears her throat, brushes her hands over the front of her jeans, adjusts her wedding ring. Clarke takes the opportunity to just look at her, unwilling to make things any easier for her mom. She’d forgotten how small Abby was, the only person she knows as slender as Octavia. Better for a surgeon, probably, having small hands. She’s dwarfed by the massive couch, has to keep her weight shifted forward to keep her feet on the ground, avoid falling back into the cushions. 

“I’ve texted you,” her mom eventually says, giving in. “Did you get it?”

Clarke shrugs.

“Of course,” her mom sighs, eternally put out by her daughter. “I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to make this easy.”

Bellamy clears his throat, tightens his arms across his chest. Clarke watches her mom’s face as she looks at him, sharp eyes taking in his bare feet, his scruffy jeans, travelling up and over his crossed arms, the hard set of his jaw, absorbing the bruises on his knuckles, his messed up face.

It’s horribly easy for Clarke to imagine what her mom sees what she looks at Bellamy. A thug, a bad influence, a fuck-up. But then Clarke blinks, and she sees Bellamy through her own eyes, what she knows of the man that’s helped to raise her, her brother for the past decade. His arrogance, his muscles, his dry humour, all just defences he puts up to protect himself from people like her mom. Part of her wishes that her mom could meet her Bellamy, see his sweetness, his selflessness, his unflinching loyalty to her and Octavia, his family. 

A bigger part of her thinks that her mom doesn’t deserve to know the real Bellamy.

“I’ve got a new partner,” Abby turns back to Clarke. “He’s called Marcus. I met him at the hospital.”

“Okay,” Clarke says mildly, not really sure what reaction her mom is expecting. What this, any of this, has to do with her.

“I’d like for you to meet him.”

“Why?” Clarke asks. It’s an honest reaction, an honest question, genuine confusion that bleeds into her voice. She has very little interest in what Abby chooses to do with her life, who she chooses to fuck. The most emotion she can imagine feeling is a slight pity for whatever man is looking for an emotional connection with her mother.

“Clarke,” her mom sighs again. “Please. I want you to meet Marcus. I think that this is a good opportunity, for all of us to get to know each other.” 

_Ah._ This isn’t about Clarke at all. This is all about keeping up appearances again, her mom’s new boyfriend asking uncomfortable questions about her hypothetical teenage daughter, why she’s never around, when exactly Abby finds the time to see her in between hospital shifts and romantic assignations.

“And it’s your birthday in a few weeks,” Abby continues. “I was thinking that we could do something. Go out for dinner. It is your sweet sixteen, after all.”

Clarke nods politely, thinks privately that she can’t imagine anything worse than spending her birthday with her mom. But there’ll be time to get out of that later, on the off chance her mom doesn’t get bored of playing happy families by then.

That’s when Octavia walks in, hair still up in a towel, wearing one of Bellamy’s sweatshirts and a pair of cut-offs.

“Oh,” she says, nose wrinkling at the sight of Abby, her displeasure obvious. “Why are _you_ here?”

Clarke stifles a laugh, not very successfully.

But then Abby narrows her eyes at Octavia and Clarke’s laughter dies away, her hackles rising. She can just about handle Abby treating Bellamy like shit - he’s a big boy, he’s handled worse - but she feels faintly murderous at the idea of her mom treating Octavia the same way. Abby has no right to treat look down on her best friend, no idea what Octavia has done for her, in her uncaring absence.

“I believe that’s my cue to leave,” Abby says, stands up to go. Clarke stands up too, suddenly eager to get her mom out of the house. 

“Excuse me,” Abby instructs Octavia. The dark-haired girl makes a big show of stepping back, but doesn’t move quite far enough, forces her mom to shimmy ungracefully through the slightly too small gap. 

“Nice to see you,” Octavia says, saccharine sweet. Abby ignores her.

“You should get that looked at,” her mom says to Bellamy as Clarke herds her past him, casually cutting. “It’s probably going to scar.”

Clarke rushes her mom down the hallway, gets the door open while her mom is still digging her car keys out of her purse.

“Next Friday, Clarke,” her mom reminds her, one hand on the door to hold it open. “I’ll text you the details. If you’re worried about getting there, I can come here and pick you up, no problem.”

It’s not a particularly subtle threat. Clarke gets the message. She’ll be meeting Marcus whether she likes it or not.

“Fine,” she says, and shuts the door.

\- 

Clarke remembers when she first met Octavia. It’d been her first day of kindergarten, five year-old Clarke hanging back at the edge of the classroom. She wasn’t sure about this, not used to the chaos and mess of a dozen other kids, yet to be convinced of the merits of spending all day, every day in this noisy, frantic space. The room smelled weird, like pencil shavings and paint, nothing like the clean, air-freshener scented rooms at home.

Glancing back at the door, she’d wondered where her mom had gone, if she’d be back soon to collect her. It didn’t seem very likely, but then again, she hadn’t been expecting her mom to get her up this morning and bring her here, either. It was a day for weird.

“Come on,” a little voice said, imperious. Clarke turned to see a tiny girl, even smaller than her, holding her hand out. She had dark hair, and it was very shiny and very straight, reaching to almost her waist. Clarke wanted to touch it. 

As Clarke watched, the girl wiggled her hand impatiently. 

“Come on,” she repeated, insistent. “You’re going to be my friend.”

Octavia had been dazzling, an endless whirl of boundless energy trapped in the body of a little girl, completely and thrillingly different from anyone that she’d met before. Even her name was exciting and different, full of extravagantly round vowels that Clarke went to sleep that night mouthing into her pillow.

_Octavia._

Everything changed the day that Clarke met her best friend, a door opening into a whole new world where there were people that wanted her, cared about her, had time for her. Clarke’s sterile, tidy life, overflowing with colour and light and noise for the first time. 

Meeting Octavia, meeting the Blakes, was like falling in love. 

There’d been only one problem - Aurora Blake. 

Back then, Octavia and Bellamy’s mom had still been around, if inconsistently. She’d turn up at the house out of nowhere, no rhyme or reason to when she’d arrive or how long she’d stay, her moods black and blue by turns. She seemed to carry all the worst parts of her children - all of Octavia’s chaos with none of her fight, all of Bellamy’s sadness with none of his kindness. Aurora could suck all of the energy out of a room just by entering it, turned the house into something grey and flat and too close to Clarke’s real home for comfort. 

The Blakes had no time, no space for Clarke when Aurora was around. Octavia was caught up, manic, desperately seeking attention from a mother who’d never really bonded with her. Bellamy, already so quiet and calm, became terrifyingly detached when his mom was there, so tense he seemed brittle, like he’d snap at any second. It was even worse when Aurora brought men home, Bellamy spending all his time running interference between his mom’s boyfriends and the girls. To this day, the only time that Bellamy has ever stopped Clarke coming to the house was when one of the boyfriends was there. She can still remember the pain that she’d felt, left at the school gates, watching Bellamy walk away with slumped shoulders, fingers clamped tight around Octavia’s little hand.

(She’s never told Bellamy what happened afterwards, the two and a half hours she’d spent waiting in the school office for her mom to come and pick her up, lights and staff dwindling until it was just her and the school nurse, already wearing her driving shoes, feet tapping impatiently against the scuffed wooden floor.)

Clarke is ashamed to admit it now, but she’d hated Aurora. To be fair, the dislike had been mutual. Aurora had no patience for Clarke, was always unpleasantly surprised to see her, confused by her constant appearances, the central role that she’d come to play in her children’s life. But no one hates quite like a child, quite so fully and unashamedly, so completely without empathy. To Clarke, Aurora was like the villain from a fairytale, the wicked witch who steals the princess’ voice, the evil stepmother who sends her daughter to sleep for a thousand years. 

She couldn’t hate Abby as easily, her childish emotions, nascent sense of betrayal still too dense and confused to be cut through with anything as clean as hatred. But Aurora was fair game.

Now, Clarke is more forgiving. Has put together enough pieces - her own memories, Octavia’s flippant comments, Bellamy’s overbearing protectiveness and half-voiced fears - to begin to understand Aurora more, to guess at the kind of things that she might have been dealing with. She can imagine Aurora’s confusion at coming home to a surprise third child in her home, one more thing to worry about when she was barely handling the responsibilities she already had, a drain on already dwindling resources.

But back then, there’d only been her hatred, clear and sharp and all-consuming. And then her bright, selfish joy once Aurora left.

It would have been easier for the Blakes, maybe, if Aurora had died, or at least to know if she was dead or alive. But she was simply there one day, and gone the next. And gone the next day, and the next day, until months had passed, almost a year, and it was clear that she wasn’t coming back. As if she’d finally looked at her life and decided that she didn’t want it anymore. Packed up and left her children behind. Gone, for good. 

It was worse for Bellamy than Octavia. Despite her shallow adoration of Aurora, her childish longing for a real mother, the centre of Octavia’s emotional universe had always been her big brother. Very little changed for her - if anything, her life was more stable, improved by her mother’s absence. For Bellamy, though, finding himself simultaneously an orphan and a father at the age of 14, it must have been much harder. He still won’t talk about it, brushes away Clarke’s questions with an irritation that borders on exasperation, the closest he ever gets to real anger with her.

“She left,” he always says, clipped and terse. “What else is there to say?”

At the time, of course, Clarke was blissfully unaware of what Bellamy and Octavia must have been going through. All she knew - all she cared to know - was that her favourite place in the world was open to her again. That her best friend was hers again. For good.

In so many ways, the worst thing that ever happened to Bellamy and Octavia was the best thing that ever happened to Clarke. 

\- 

It’s the perfect lazy weekend morning. Clarke wakes up in Bellamy’s arms, against his chest. She’s a bit too hot actually - Bellamy burns like a furnace during the night - but it’s worth it, for the way he’s playing with her hair, for the smile he gives her when she looks up at him, scoots up to kiss him a slow good morning. Bliss, to kiss him like this, sweet and easy, propped up on his chest, his hand in her hair. It’s the intimacy she craves, even more than the sex, the dizzying feeling of knowing him better than anyone else, the intoxication of closeness. 

She leaves him to shower, finds him again in the kitchen, washing the dishes from the night before. 

“I could have done that,” she says.

He shrugs. “Don’t worry about it.”

Bellamy is elbows deep in soapy water, doesn’t turn around when Clarke puts her arms around his waist, interlocking her fingers on his stomach. She buries her face in between his shoulder blades, feels the muscles of his back flexing as as he scrubs and rinses, leans over slightly to put a pan on the drying rack. He smells warm and familiar, like laundry detergent and pine, and Clarke inhales deeply, fills her lungs with him, to match her dangerously overfull heart. 

The kitchen is bright and clean, the window above the sink cracked open to let a breeze in from outside, net curtains fluttering. Music plays from Bellamy’s phone propped up on the shelf, an easy listening mix that he hums along to absent-mindedly, endearingly out of tune. A clichéd domestic scene, too good to be true, like a commercial for cleaning products or life insurance. Somewhere in the house Octavia is asleep, but soon she’ll get up and they’ll all have breakfast together, the three of them crammed around the tiny kitchen table, the two siblings fighting over who gets the wobbly chair. 

This is Clarke’s home. She feels an almost physical pang at the idea of leaving to go anywhere, let alone to see her mom and _Marcus_. 

“Hey,” Bellamy says, straightening up, sensing the change in mood. “What’s up?”

Clarke rests her forehead against the broad plain of his back, feeling like an idiot, like such a teenager.

“I don’t want to have dinner with my mom,” she confesses.

The words hang for a second in the quiet room. Bellamy lets go of the dish he was washing, reaches up to put his hand on hers, still dripping from the sink.

“I know.” He pauses, exhales deeply like he’s thinking carefully about what to say. “I think you should, though.”

“Why?” Clarke asks, petulant. She’d been hoping that he’d tell her that she didn’t have to see her mom, knows he doesn’t like Abby either. He’s so infuriatingly responsible, sometimes.

“Because she’s your mom.”

“That’s not a good reason,” Clarke grumbles. “What has she ever done for me?”

Bellamy laughs. “That’s not how it works with family, babe.”

“She’s not my family. You are.”

She can hear the smile in Bellamy’s voice as he replies. “Damn right we are. So you go have dinner with your mom, and when you get back, Octavia and I will be right here.” He pats her hand reassuringly. 

Clarke doesn’t answer.

“Clarke?” Bellamy turns around to face her, forcing her to open her arms to let him move. He leans back against the counter, pulls her to stand in the vee of his legs, his hands settling naturally on her waist. Clarke doesn’t respond when he nuzzles against her cheek, turning away sulkily instead. 

“Come on, give me a kiss.” He chases her with his mouth, scatters kisses across her nose and cheeks until she can’t help but smile, let him kiss her properly.

“You’re okay, sweetheart,” he says when he pulls away, smiling at her encouragingly. 

Clarke nods, but she doesn’t feel okay at all. She feels like crying, frustrated and backed into a corner, annoyed at Bellamy for not letting her off the hook, annoyed at herself for even caring about her mom at all. Avoiding his eyes, she concentrates instead on smoothing out the fabric of his t-shirt where she’s inadvertently twisted it in her hands, pulling down the hem where it’s ridden up over his stomach. 

Bellamy puts his hands around her wrists, stilling her anxious movements as he pushes up off the counter, rises up to his full height. She blinks up at him as he suddenly towers over her, bemused.

Clarke lets him turn again, this time spinning her around with him so that she ends up facing the sink, pinned in between the counter and the hard line of his body behind her. He puts his hands back on her waist, so big they almost span the full width of her, bends down close so that she can feel the whisper of his breath against her ear. 

“Remember this?”

Confused, she shakes her head. She feels, rather than sees, his grin, and knows that she’s just played right into his hands, sprung yet another one of his carefully laid traps.

“My birthday?” he coaxes. “You tried to make me breakfast?”

Understanding dawns, and Clarke cringes as she remembers that morning, her poor attempt at cooking for him, almost setting herself and the kitchen on fire in the process. That had been another girl, Clarke before Bellamy, only six months younger than she is now but not really, no understanding of what she was beginning to feel or what was going on in her head, why she was so newly and achingly _aware_ of her best friend’s big brother. Just knowing how important it suddenly was for Bellamy to see her as an adult, a grown-up, even if she couldn’t fully articulate the reason why. 

“That was so embarrassing,” she mutters grumpily, not sure why he’s brought it up when she’s already feeling like shit.

“It was so cute,” Bellamy corrects her. He reaches around and takes her hand, runs his finger over where the burn scar would be. There’s no trace of the injury now, his touch guided by memory alone. “ _You_ were so cute, taking care of me. Until you tried to immolate yourself.”

Clarke huffs and wiggles against him in a half-hearted attempt to free herself, annoyed. Unconcerned, Bellamy smoothes his hands up and down her bare arms, gently chafes the skin like he’s trying to warm her up, holding her in place easily with the bulk of his body. 

“And then we stood here like this, right here, you remember?” He drops a light kiss to her neck, just below her ear. “This is where I first realised that I was in love with you.”

“Here?” Clarke asks, surprised. She stops trying to escape, stands still as she tries to absorb the new information. She’d had no such moment of revelation about her feelings for Bellamy. For her, falling in love had happened in bits and pieces, a scattering of half-realisations and _almosts_ , so gradually that by the time she had the words for what she felt, it felt more like a memory than a discovery.

“Right here,” Bellamy confirms. He runs his hands down her arms again, a firm, smooth movement that gets her relaxing back into him, her head tipping back against his chest. “You, driving me crazy, your tight little ass up against me like this.”

One of his hands holds both of hers, pinning them to the counter so that she’s leaning forward slightly over the sink. At the same time, he smoothly brings his other hand to her hip, pulls back and up, tilting her so that her body arches up in an obscene curve, her ass fitting snugly into his crotch.

He’s already hard, and she can’t stop herself squirming against his cock, all her other worries forgotten in her consuming need to get as close to him as possible.

“Fuck, princess,” Bellamy says, his mouth still against her neck. His hand stays on her hip as she rolls her body into him, not trying to control her movements, just feeling her. “Do you have any idea what you were doing to me? What I wanted to do to you?” 

Clarke shakes her head but he’s not waiting for her answer, already kissing down her neck to where it meets her shoulder, scraping his teeth over the skin until she gasps, her eyes falling shut. The full length of his body is pressed tight against her, his chest to her back, his hand on hers keeping her bent over the counter. Crowding her, keeping her in place so that the only part of her free to move is her hips. 

She wants him to touch her properly, already wet and aching for him, both turned on and frustrated by the way he’s trapped her, so exactly where he wants her. The sharp edge of the counter presses into her stomach, only winding her up more, hard pressure but not where she wants it, where she’s longing for it. Clarke’s got nowhere to go, no room to reach down and touch herself, no room to move back.

“You know how much I wanted to kiss you?” Bellamy releases her hands, cups her cheek as he kisses her, sweet and romantic, his lips lingering on hers. She whines when he finally draws back, needy for contact, but he just bumps her nose with his, smiles when she opens her eyes.

“How much I wanted to touch you?” he continues, shifting back a little, creating just enough space to get his hand down between the counter and her stomach, under the waistband of her leggings. He knows that she doesn’t need any teasing, already worked up and ready for him, just moves her panties aside and smoothly fucks two fingers straight into her. Bellamy hisses as he feels how wet she is, so soaked that his fingers go in stupid easy, curling right up against where she’s most sensitive, rubbing hard until she whimpers and shudders.

“You feel how wet you are, baby?”

Clarke doesn’t answer, distracted by the slow grind of his palm against her clit, her heart pounding in her chest.

“I wanted to get you like this, all wet and desperate for me, make you as crazy as I was. Couldn’t stop thinking about how sweet you’d be, how beautiful, just like this. Just for me.”

Bellamy fingers her like that until she’s on the edge, panting, just about to come, and then he stops. Pulls his hand out of her cunt and her panties and steps back, leaving her alone against the counter, set adrift without him against her, his arms around her. 

“What are you doing?” she gasps. “Bell?”

“Need to get my mouth on you, babe. Stay like this for me, okay?” 

He kneels down on the floor behind her, strips off her leggings and panties in one quick movement, helps her step out of them. Quick, sharp movements, the only sign that he’s feeling as undone by this as she is. 

“Open up for me a little, yeah?” He taps lightly on the inside of her knee, and all the blood rushes to Clarke’s face as she widens her stance, tilts up her hips towards him, trying not to think about what it must look like from his position. 

“Fuck, look at you,” Bellamy rasps out, his hands gliding up the back of her thighs, thumbs tracing the curve of her buttocks. “So pretty, huh?”

Clarke startles when he leans in between her legs and licks her, starting with her clit and tracing broad strokes up with his tongue. He groans when he gets his tongue into her cunt, gently spreads her open with his thumbs so he can get a little deeper, get a little more of her.

She’d thought by now that she was used to the things that she did with Bellamy, that he’d already seen her naked from every angle that a horny 15 year-old girl and 22 year-old man could come up with, that she was unshockable. He has no shame when it comes to sex, no embarrassment about his body or hers, no concern for what’s nice or polite in his single-minded pursuit of her pleasure and his. It’s difficult to remember her own insecurities in the face of his unending and generous praise, his open worship of her body, the genuine joy he seems to take in making her feel good. Still, Clarke hadn’t ever imagined this - leaning half naked over the kitchen sink while he eats her out from behind, his hands resting on her buttocks, his mouth dangerously close to her ass. He’s never touched her there before, and she’s sure that he won’t now, not without asking, but the thought adds an extra twist to her pleasure, makes her uncomfortable and aroused in equal measure. 

Not sure if she wants him to, or not. Not sure if she wants him to ask, or not. 

Bellamy takes his time working her over, teases her clit until she wants to sob, keeps going until she wants to scream. She almost does scream when he puts his fingers in her again, spreads them apart, flicks around where he’s holding her open with the pointed tip of his tongue. Clarke comes hard, shaking, hands scrabbling against the smooth surface of the kitchen counter, the breeze from the window playing over her heated skin. 

Loud music blares as someone drives past the house, slowly receding into the distance. 

Her breathing is still unsteady when Bellamy gets back up and leans over her, his own pants pulled down, cock hard against her bare skin. He pulls her hands up to rest on the windowsill so she’s completely stretched out over the counter, folds her fingers over the wood, kisses her temple briefly. 

“Hold on, sweetheart.”

Clark expects him to fuck her hard, set a furious pace after denying them both for so long, but he only eases his cock into her gently, so slowly she barely feels the stretch, just the unbearable sweetness of having him inside her, the mind-shattering pleasure of it. Every thrust is the same, Bellamy barely withdrawing before he’s pushing back into her, lazily keeping her full of him, like they have all the time in the world, like his sister couldn’t walk in on them any second.

It’s perfect. Frustratingly perfect, frustratingly restrained. Clarke circles her hips, wants him to fuck her wild like she knows he can, wants him to fuck everything out of her until there’s no room to think, breathe, no room in her head for anything that isn’t him. She whines when he ignores her, his only response the repositioning of his hands on her hips to get a better grip.

After what seems like endless minutes of the same steady, maddening pace, the tension in her body coiling tighter with each slow pass, Bellamy leans over to brace his own hand against the windowsill next to hers. The size difference is stark, instantly apparent to both of them, just one of his large hands easily big enough to cover both of hers, and Clarke moans for it at the same time as his cock jolts inside her, Bellamy’s perfect rhythm faltering briefly.

It’s all the opening that Clarke needs to thrust her hips back onto his cock, greedy, wanting more of him, all his size, all his strength. All of him, hers. 

Bellamy groans, his self-control slipping, and his next thrust is so hard that Clarke almost falls into the sink, pushed up onto her tiptoes with the sheer force of it. The counter is wet, damp with suds, and water soaks through her tank top as he slams into her, bears his weight down on her in a welcome crush. 

“Bell,” she cries out, not caring how loud she is, only caring about how good it feels, each brutal thrust setting her whole body on fire, forcing her that much closer to coming again even if it’s too soon, too much, her body out of her control. 

Clarke takes a hand off the windowsill and gets it on her clit, rubbing hard, no technique, no finesse, just the desperate urge to come again, the need to come with his cock in her. Bellamy swears as she comes, her pussy tightening around him, a strangled cry trapped in her throat along with all her breath. 

“Jesus,” he grits out, breath laboured with the force of his movements, fucking her through her orgasm. “This what you wanted? Wanted me to fuck you hard, like this? Show you that you’re mine?”

She nods, not able to speak yet, her hand still on her clit, rubbing slow circles as she comes down. 

“Fuck.”

Bellamy thrusts into her again, the force of his whole body behind it, and Clarke fumbles, loses her grip where she’s braced against the windowsill, all her muscles weak after coming. He reacts lightning-fast, gets his arm under her just in time to stop her crashing face-first into the sink, but she still bangs her hip painfully on the edge of the counter. 

“Ow!” she yelps.

“Shit.” Bellamy stops moving, his arm clasped tight around her stomach, holding her up. “You okay?”

“Uh, I think so,” Clarke pants out. She squints down at her hip, thinks that she can see where a dark bruise is already blooming, harsh and ugly against her winter-pale skin. “I’ve got a bruise.”

“Can I see?”

Bellamy releases his grip and pulls out of her, still hard, and Clarke turns around so that he can inspect the damage for himself. 

“Poor baby.” Bellamy traces the skin around the bruise with his fingers, careful not to touch where it hurts. His eyes are concerned when he looks at her. “I’m sorry. Sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” 

Clarke wraps her arms around his shoulders to bring him closer, kiss him out of his worry. Feels a bit bad for making a fuss when he looks like he wants to jump off the nearest bridge at just the thought of hurting her. She threads her fingers into his hair and pulls gently, knows that he likes it when she gets a bit rough with him, his cock jumping where it’s pressed up against her stomach. His mouth relaxes against her almost immediately, the kiss deepening, and now when she pulls away and looks into his eyes she sees only a dark heat, guilt washed clean by desire, reigniting the want in her own belly. 

She almost tries to hang onto Bellamy when he moves, thinks irrationally that he’s going to walk away, but relaxes when he doesn’t go far, just kneels down in front of her. His mouth is level with her hip and he looks up, holds her gaze with steady burning eyes as he leans in to kiss her bruised skin, tongue flicking gently over where it aches. 

Clarke bites her lip, reaches down to run her fingers over the sharp line of his cheekbone.

He goes back in for another kiss, this time on her clit, mouthing at her until she moans, until she jolts and pulls him away, hand tight in his hair. 

“Come back,” she pouts, tugging him up.

“Your wish is my command.” Bellamy gets back to his feet and kisses her, his hands on her ass, extravagantly groping her as Clarke laughs into his mouth, bats his hands away. 

“Trust me?” he asks.

She nods, smiling breathlessly, all her pain forgotten. 

“Put your arms around my neck.”

Clarke leans up on her toes and wraps her arms around his neck, squealing when he picks her up effortlessly, guiding her legs around his waist. 

Her squeal turns into a moan as Bellamy adjusts his grip, lowers her down carefully onto his cock. They haven’t done this before, and Clarke’s not prepared for how it feels, how easily he enters her, the position opening her up so it’s only the work of simple gravity to bring their bodies together. She _loves_ it. Loves it instantly - how deep he gets, how close he is, the two of them face to face. The feeling of her body, held weightless and suspended in his hands, completely at his mercy. The sheer abandon of it, the hint of danger. 

She laughs again, bright and disbelieving. 

“Is this gonna work?”

Bellamy grins.

“Don’t worry, princess,” he says. “I’m not letting go of you, I promise.”

\- 

Time passes far too quickly that week, the pit in Clarke’s stomach yawning wider a little day as she thinks about spending an uninterrupted evening with her mom. As promised, Abby has texted her the details of where they’re meeting for dinner - an upmarket restaurant on the riverfront, on the opposite side of town from the Blake house, too far away for her to come back the same night. Bellamy whistles when she tells him where they’re going, eyebrows raising.

“She’s going all out,” he comments, his attention divided between her and the pasta he’s cooking, prodding the mass of spaghetti with a fork to try and figure out if it’s cooked. “Making an effort.”

“Whatever,” Clarke replies. She drums her ankles against the cabinet doors, sat on the counter next to the oven, watching him. “It’s not for me, it’s for _Marcus_.”

“You find out any more about him?” Bellamy fishes out a strand of spaghetti, eyes it critically as it hangs limply from the fork. 

“Nope.” she says, popping the ‘p’ definitively. “What is there to know? Just throw it at the wall.”

“What?” Bellamy says, turning to look at her, startled.

“The pasta. Throw it at the wall, see if it sticks. Then you’ll know if it’s cooked.” Clarkes smiles impishly.

“You teaching me how to cook now?” Bellamy questions her, smiling back. “Why would I waste perfectly good spaghetti when I’ve got a willing test subject right here?”

He holds the fork out, spaghetti dangling, and Clarke leans over to clumsily catch it in her mouth, narrowly avoids dropping it onto the floor, almost falling off the counter herself in her eagerness.

“Tut tut,” Bellamy chides, abandons the pasta to come and steady her, his hands coming to rest on her knees. “No table manners at all. You’re right, maybe you should skip that fancy dinner.”

They kiss, Bellamy’s hands gradually and inevitably making their way up her thighs, until they’re interrupted by a hissing noise, the pan boiling over, frothing water dripping down into the flame.

“I think it’s done,” Clarke says. 

\- 

Soon enough it’s actually Friday morning, then lunchtime, then afternoon, the hours somehow ticking by even faster than the days until it’s suddenly 5.30pm and Clarke finds herself stood in front of the mirror in her underwear, trying to decide what to wear. 

She’s narrowed it down to two dresses - one blue, one black, both knee length and just about conservative enough for a dinner with her mom and a strange man of unknown perviness - when Octavia wanders in and sits on the bed. 

Clarke carefully doesn’t react, turns and holds the two dresses up against her body. 

“What do you think?” she asks, hopes that her friend can’t hear the lump in her throat, the unsteadiness in her voice.

Octavia hmms, considering, tapping her fingers against her chin. Clarke holds her breath. It’s like being in a room with a wild animal, no way to predict what the other girl is going to do or say next, the usual rules of their friendship not just discarded but torn up, in pieces.

“The blue,” Octavia eventually decides. “It brings out your eyes, makes you look younger. Abby probably doesn’t want you looking too grown-up if you’re meeting her new man.”

Clarke exhales, relieved. “Okay.”

She slings the black dress over the back of the chair, lifts her arms to slide the blue dress over her head. 

“Wow.”

She stops, drops her arms again. “What?”

Octavia’s eyes are wide, astonished. “New bra?”

Clarke blushes, uncomfortable. It is a new bra - black lace, underwired, scooping her _up_ and _out_ in all the ways that she’s avoided until now, content with sports bras and crop tops and her one old cotton bra with the underwire coming out of the armpit. She’s bought a whole new wardrobe of underwear since she started seeing Bellamy. Not _for_ him - honestly, she could probably start wearing brown paper bags instead of underwear and he’d just shrug and say it was up to her, if he even noticed - but maybe _because_ of him, a bit. It’s a new idea, that she doesn’t have to hate her body, that perhaps it is beautiful in all the ways that he says it is, acts like it is. A trick that she’s started to play on herself, to choose to look at herself through his adoring eyes instead of her own critical ones.

Octavia gets up off the bed, walks over to where Clarke is standing, awkwardly posed, half in, half out of her dress. 

“I could never look like this.” Her friend’s voice is wistful, quiet. A little desolate.

She reaches out to feel the delicate fabric of the bra, her fingers tracing over the sharp line of the band where it sits against Clarke’s ribs, the edge of the cup where it frames her cleavage, exploring the impossible contrast of structured lace and soft flesh. There’s a ghost of a touch over Clarke’s skin where it meets the fabric, unclear if by accident or design, too light to say if it really happened, what it meant if it did. 

“You look amazing,” Octavia finally says, hands dropping back to her sides.

“Thanks,” Clarke replies. She’s not sure what to say, how she’s meant to react to Octavia’s touch, previously so familiar it warranted no reaction at all, made strange and new by the growing distance between them. 

“What’s this?”

Octavia’s gaze falls to the bruise on her hip, dark against her skin, half hidden by the panties. 

“It’s nothing,” Clarke says, shifting uneasily, thinking longingly of the dress she’s still holding, would like to put on, ideally.

“It looks like it hurts. What happened?” Octavia’s eyes are narrowed when she looks back up, her tone sharp. 

“Banged it against the kitchen counter,” Clarke replies. 

It’s nice to be able to tell the truth for once. _Kind of._

“Must have banged it pretty hard,” Octavia says, thoughtful. “It looks like it hurts.”

“Yeah, it was really painful.”

Conversation over, Clarke waits patiently for Octavia to step back, let her get dressed. 

She’s not expecting what happens next. She’s not expecting her friend to actually touch the bruise. 

Too surprised to stop her, Clarke can only watch, frozen, as Octavia puts out her hand, slowly traces over the outline of it, running her fingers over the damaged skin in an unknowing echo of her brother’s touch. 

There’s no name for the feeling in Clarke’s stomach as she watches Octavia put her hands on the mark that Bellamy left on her. That her brother, _their brother_ left on her skin. No name, just the sense of something vast and dizzying, time losing all meaning, memory and reality colliding and cracking open, like Clarke is there with Bellamy and simultaneously here with Octavia, two bowed dark heads, two outstretched hands, the same cautious touch. 

_How easily it could have happened_ , she thinks. _How easy it would have been, to fall in love with Octavia instead of Bellamy._

Octavia is beautiful. Ferocious, intelligent, charming. Whatever cosmic flip of a coin settled on the brother instead of the sister, it’s not difficult to imagine the opposite outcome. In another world, another life, Clarke could see herself falling in love with Octavia, building a life with her, even being happy with her, if Octavia is capable of an emotion as simple and uncomplicated as happiness. 

But they’re in this world, this life, and it’s Bellamy’s bed that Clarke gets into every night, his arms around her every morning, his marks on her. Bellamy, that she’s in love with. 

Clarke holds herself statue-still as Octavia finishes exploring the bruise, fingers dipping just under the line of her underwear to complete the shape. 

Except she’s not finished. 

They both watch, silent, hypnotised, as Octavia presses one finger firmly into the middle of the bruise, skin turning white from the pressure. It hurts. Hurts more when her friend takes her hand away, blood rushing back in to fill the empty space, Octavia’s touch erased, like it never happened. But Clarke doesn’t move, just grits her teeth and takes it, the pain only another facet to whatever this is, this nameless, sickening thing in the pit of her stomach. 

“O?” she says eventually, her voice thin, reluctant to break the silence.

Octavia looks up at Clarke. At first she’s somewhere far away, her face blank, eyes distant and unfocused, but then she blinks, and she’s back, smiling, like nothing ever happened.

“Put it on,” she says.

“What?”

“Put it on.” Octavia gestures to the dress, hanging forgotten from Clarke’s hand. “Let me see.”

Obediently Clarke puts on the dress, her hands shaking a little at first until she gets control of herself. She pulls out her hair from the collar where it’s gotten caught, holds it in front with one hand as she spins, putting her back to Octavia.

“Will you zip me up?” she asks over her shoulder, shy.

“Of course.”

Octavia does up the button at the top of the dress and zips it up, careful not to catch any skin in the metal teeth. A shiver passes through Clarke when Octavia accidentally touches the back of her neck. Neither of them comment on it.

“You look nice,” she says, once she’s finished doing Clarke up. “Told you. You wearing any jewellery with it?”

Clarke picks up the necklace from the table - a gold locket, never worn, a present from her mom on her eleventh birthday - and wordlessly hands it over for Octavia to clasp around her neck. She smoothes her hands over Clarke’s shoulders when she’s finished, straightening out the fabric, fiddling with the capped sleeves.

“I should go,” Clarke says, watching Octavia’s hands in the mirror. “My mom’s picking me up from out front at 6. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

She grabs her jacket and bag off the bed, already halfway out of the door when Octavia stops her.

“Hey,” she says. “Don’t worry about tonight. Your mom’s a bitch - ”

Clarke snorts with laughter, despite herself.

“Your mom’s a bitch,” Octavia repeats louder, smiling. “But you’ve still got us.”

She shrugs, her old practiced and perfected carelessness. 

“Still got me, if it counts.”

“Of course it does,” Clarke replies, heartbroken. “O…”

She rushes back into the room, throws her arms around Octavia in a hug, almost sweeping the smaller girl off her feet. It takes a long, heart-stopping moment for Octavia to return the gesture, but then she’s clinging on to Clarke with all her strength, like she’s holding on for dear life, like she’s never going to let her go again. 

The two of them, standing in their childhood bedroom. Just holding on.

“Of course it does,” Clarke repeats fiercely, blinking away the tears, tightening her arms around her friend. 

\- 

Marcus is a surprise.

All that week, trying to conjure an image of Abby’s boyfriend in her head, Clarke had found herself at a complete loss. She had no memory of her father. His parents had died a long time ago, long before she was born, and he’d been an only child, his sole family the one that he’d attempted to build with her and her mother. Abby was also an only child with no surviving family, no friends that Clarke knew of aside from Dr Jaha, who truthfully was more of a colleague. There’d been no one to tell her stories about her father when she was growing up, no cherished family reminiscences to fill in the gaps left by her own lack of memory. When Clarke looked at photos of Jake Griffin, she saw a man that could be anybody, having no idea of his personality, his dreams, his fears - knowing nothing about anything that couldn’t be captured on a 5x7 rectangle of glossy photo paper.

She simply didn’t know what kind of man her mom would be attracted to, what she would look for in a partner. Clarke was an artist with no materials, trying to pull a portrait of a stranger out of thin air. 

So Clarke had stopped trying to imagine what Marcus would be like, and focused instead on what he wouldn’t be like. If she couldn’t imagine the man himself, she could at least sketch out the negative space around him - how he wouldn’t look, what he wouldn’t say, what he wouldn’t think. That was much easier. Clarke didn’t know much about what her mom liked, but she knew quite a bit about what she didn’t like.

Marcus wouldn’t be too attractive. For her mom, the human body was a machine - made useful by what it could do, made interesting in how it did or didn’t function, but of no value for how it looked, aesthetically speaking. Having survived medical school and excelled in the male-dominated field of emergency medicine, her mom had no love for cocky or overbearing men, so Marcus wouldn’t be too confident, too ‘flashy’. He wouldn’t be high maintenance or overly emotional, wouldn’t demand that Abby change her life or her routines to suit his. 

Eventually Clarke ended up with not so much a portrait as an average. Marcus would be bland, unassuming, attractive enough to get by, boring enough not to rock the boat. Generic white collar job, expensive watch, safely patterned tie, one hobby for the weekends (golf), one exciting life experience to talk about inoffensively at dinner parties (scuba diving in Thailand). If you put a gun to her head and forced her to assign him a personality, Clarke would have said that he would be practical, predictable, and appropriate. Just another middle-aged man. 

The man waiting for them at the restaurant isn’t anything like that.

Marcus is already sat at the table when they arrive, late, but he stands up as soon as he sees Abby, giving Clarke plenty of time to look him over as mother and daughter make their way through the restaurant. 

The first surprise is that he’s attractive. Handsome. A couple of years older than her mother, fine lines just starting to feather around warm brown eyes, hair brushed back off his forehead and long enough to meet his collar, a greying beard that carefully straddles the line between full and unkempt. He’s not wearing a suit, just dark grey slacks, a simple round neck black jumper pushed to his elbows, a black leather jacket hanging on the back of his chair. 

He smiles as they approach, full and welcoming, lighting up an expressive face. His teeth look very white, set off by tan skin that could be equally the result of sun or genetics. Clarke smiles back nervously, already thrown by her earlier encounter with Octavia and the tense car ride with her mother, stretched out almost past endurance by bad traffic and sparse conversation. 

“Abby,” he greets her mom, voice low and smooth. He kisses her on the cheek, one hand on her waist to steady himself, and then turns to Clarke.

“And you must be Clarke?”

Clarke nods. “Hi.”

She holds out her hand for him to shake, surprised when he only grasps it loosely, leans in to kiss her on the cheek too. His beard isn’t as scratchy as it looks. It’s soft, a pleasant tickle against her skin.

Clarke wouldn’t have put her mom with a man with a beard, not in a million years.

The waitress appears after only a couple of minutes, obviously put out by Clarke and Abby’s late arrival, trying to rush them through their drinks orders, speed them out of her section and back out into the night. Marcus slows her down and charms her effortlessly, asking her opinion on the wine, listening attentively to her suggestions, and in the end letting her choose for him. 

Unusually, and slightly disconcertingly, Abby also orders a glass of wine, if only a small one to Marcus’ large. Clarke’s never seen her mother drink, can’t remember a single evening when she hasn’t been on duty, the fate of countless hypothetical lives in her hands, on her mind. Clarke is at least reassured that she decisively chooses her own vintage, handing the drinks list back to the waitress with a tight smile. 

Despite Abby’s brusqueness, the waitress leaves smiling, her eyes lingering on Marcus, and when she comes back with their drinks she brings a complementary starter for the table as well.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you finally, Clarke,” Marcus says, once the waitress finally and reluctantly leaves. “Abby has told me a lot about you. I’ve always known that she’s very proud of you, and now I can see why.”

Clarke swirls the straw around her diet Coke, ice tinkling against the glass as she glances at her mom, not sure if he’s being sarcastic. But her mom isn’t looking in her direction - she’s smiling, taking a sip of her wine, gazing at Marcus with unfamiliar, adoring eyes.

“Thanks,” Clarke says, shifting on her chair. “Um. It’s nice to meet you too.”

“But,” Marcus continues. “I think I’ve heard enough from your mother about you. How about you tell me something about yourself? Something that your mother wouldn’t know.”

He smiles, eyes dancing with mischief. 

“Um…” Clarke pauses, takes a sip of her drink to cover her panic. She can’t think, her mind suddenly replaying every single thing that she’s ever done with Bellamy, _the feel of him full inside her, the awed look on his face as he touches her lips stretched around his cock, his bright smile as he fucks her standing in the kitchen, arms wrapped tight around her._

_Octavia, smiling as she leads Clarke down a dark hallway, their hands interlinked around her brother’s cock, her hand on Clarke’s breast, eyes nervous as she glances up at Clarke’s face._

The bruise on her hip throbs. 

“Come on,” Marcus coaxes her, his voice playful. He’s leaning forward, elbows on the table, hands interlaced. “You can’t shock me, I promise.”

 _Wanna bet?_ Clarke thinks.

“I draw,” she finally ventures, tentative. “I like to draw.”

“I didn’t know that,” Abby says with a frown. “What do you draw?”

Clarke turns helplessly to her mother, mouth open, stuttering, but Marcus saves her.

“Come on Abby, what’s the point of being a teenager if you don’t have a secret or two from your parents, hmm?” He reaches out and takes her mom’s hand across the table, stroking his fingers over the back of her hand calmingly.

“So, you’re an artist?” Marcus looks overjoyed, grinning like he’s just received the best news of his life. “Clever, pretty _and_ creative. The boys don’t stand a chance, huh?”

Clarke blushes. 

“Tell me about it,” he encourages her. “I want to hear everything.”

It’s easy to speak to Marcus. He listens with genuine interest as she tells him all about what they’re covering in art class at school, her favourite artists, her meandering description of her own artwork and the pieces she’s currently working on. It doesn’t feel like talking to older guys sometimes does - Marcus isn’t creepy, doesn’t belittle or patronise her, doesn’t dig for more information than she’s comfortable giving. He treats her like a grown-up, two adults sharing their interests, and Clarke can’t help but like him.

All the while Clarke’s talking, Marcus keeps hold of Abby’s hand, his thumb running back and forth over the back of her hand. Touch just for the sake of touch, no real intent behind it, a tiny gesture but full of so much intimacy that Clarke doesn’t want to look, can’t keep her eyes away. Marcus’ nails are clean and neatly shaped, his hands smooth, a far cry from Bellamy’s rough, work torn hands.

The food arrives - a salad for her mom, pasta for her, steak for Marcus - but the conversation keeps flowing, interrupted only occasionally by questions from Abby, awkward attempts to join in and keep up the pretence that she actually knows her own daughter. 

Eventually Clarke runs out of steam. Marcus takes a sip of his wine, his food long since finished, knife and fork tidily arranged in the middle of his empty plate. 

“Is there anything that you want to know about me?” he asks. “I’m sure that you must have questions, Clarke, and I’d like you to know that I’m happy to answer anything that you want to ask me.”

Clarke doesn’t think that she’s imagining the way that her mom tenses up, but she can’t see a reason for her agitation. The evening’s gone more or less perfectly, like an instructional video on how to introduce your daughter to your new boyfriend. Abby’s expectations of Clarke must just really be that low, she guesses.

“Ab- Mom said that you met at the hospital?”

“Yes.” Marcus turns briefly to smile at Abby, squeeze her hand. Her mom returns his smile but it’s shaky, quickly fading away when he looks back to Clarke. “I’m not a doctor - I leave that to the really clever people, like your mother. I work in insurance.”

“Insurance? Health insurance?”

“Yes. I know what you’re thinking - and yes, it is very boring, but luckily for me, I have Abby to keep my life exciting.”

It’s no small achievement for Clarke to keep her face neutral at that moment, but she just about manages it. 

“Shall we get the cheque?” her mom interjects. “It’s getting late.”

“Of course.” Marcus signals the waitress with a raised hand, pulls out his wallet. “Will you and Clarke be coming with me, or are you taking your own car, sweetheart?”

Clarke feels the blood drain from her face. She hadn’t considered the possibility that Marcus might be coming back to her mother’s house as well, feels like an idiot for not realising. Of course. They must be in a serious relationship, for her mom to have introduced Marcus to her. Of course they’ve had sex. 

But that doesn’t mean that Clarke wants to hear it. Her stomach churns at the idea of being in the same house while Marcus and Abby share a bed, the possibility of hearing her mom having sex, lying in a strange bed alone while this charming man makes love to her mother only feet away. Sitting down for breakfast the next morning with the two of them, eyes only for each other, just one more part of her mom’s life that she’s not really part of, that she’s intruding on.

“I want to go home,” Clarke blurts out suddenly. 

For the first time that evening Marcus is wrong-footed, looks to Abby for clarification. “Isn’t that where we’re going?”

“That’s not what she means.” Abby drains her wine glass, a sour look on her face. The same look that Clarke somehow always manages to put on her mom’s face, without even trying. “She means the Blakes. The family friends that I was telling you about.”

“Oh.” Marcus’ brow furrows as he counts out notes, putting down enough money for the meal and a generous tip besides. “The sitters? Well, I don’t mind driving her back, if Clarke can direct me.”

“Marcus, you really don’t have to.” Abby looks at Clarke, annoyed, obviously wanting Clarke to say that’s okay, that she doesn’t need to go back to the Blake house tonight. To back down. But Clarke says nothing, just stares back, carefully oblivious. 

“It’s no bother.” Marcus stands up, leans over to kiss her mom’s forehead. “I’ll meet you at home, darling.”

\- 

The car ride with Marcus is far easier than the drive with her mom, even if they spend most of the journey in silence. Clarke doesn’t know much about cars, but she thinks that Marcus has an expensive one - leather interior, heated seats, inbuilt GPS with a little robotic voice that helpfully informs him of speed limits and upcoming junctions. 

Clarke looks out of the window as they drive, watches the buildings speeding by. Marcus is a good driver, his hand firm on the stick shift, every movement calm and controlled, authoritative. She’s almost asleep by the time that they pull up outside the Blake house, its flaking paint and sagging frame thankfully camouflaged by the dark night. 

“This is it.”

It’s quiet as Marcus pulls up to the curb, shuts the engine off with a smooth hum. Clarke’s seatbelt whooshes through the metal buckle as she presses the button with a click. 

“Before you get out of the car, Clarke…” Marcus turns to her awkwardly, still wearing his own seatbelt, one hand on the wheel. “Do you have a moment?”

Clarke nods.

Marcus takes a deep breath before he continues. “I hope that you know that I care very deeply for your mother, Clarke. I understand that things haven’t been easy for the two of you, and I’m sorry if I’ve played any part of that. But I’m hoping that this can be a fresh start for all of us.”

“Okaaay,” she says slowly, a bit confused, caught off guard by the unexpected speech. 

“It’s been lovely to meet you Clarke. I hope I’ll see you again soon?”

“You too,” she replies, disconcerted to find that she actually means it. 

She’s not so surprised this time when Marcus leans over and kisses her on the cheek again, used to it already.

“Off you go. I’ll watch to make sure you get in safely.”

Clarke scrambles out and shuts the car door, careful not to accidentally slam it. She walks up the path, feeling Marcus’ eyes on her the whole time, turns to give him a little wave when she reaches the front door. He waves back, illuminated by the car’s interior light. 

\- 

It’s not that late - just after 11pm - but the house is quiet when she opens the front door, bright hallway lights the only sign that Bellamy and Octavia are still awake. Clarke slips off her shoes and dumps her stuff by the front door, padding through to the living room in bare feet. The carpet is thin in patches, by turns soft and scratchy against her skin. 

The door isn’t closed, just ajar, and it opens with a creak when Clarke puts her hand on it, stepping in from the hallway. The room is lit up with the glow of the television, casting an unearthly blue glow on the two siblings watching TV, the remains of their own evening meal still on the coffee table in front of them. 

Clarke pauses, a sick feeling of panic trickling through her as she takes in the scene. Bellamy is lying on his back, Octavia cuddled against him on her side, snugly nestled in between the broad expanse of her brother’s body and the back of the couch. There’s a blanket pulled up around them, but Clarke can see Bellamy’s arm casually wrapped around his sister, his hand spread across her waist. Octavia’s own arm is slung up around his neck, hand resting easily on his shoulder, her head on his chest. 

It’s not how they’re lying that alarms her. Bellamy and Octavia have always been unusually close in every way, including physical, and she’s seen them in similar positions before. Their personal boundaries eroded away a long time ago, weathered and exposed by the same forces that once broke down the boundaries between Octavia and Clarke herself. 

No. What alarms Clarke is the two empty beer bottles on the floor next to Bellamy’s head, the way he sleepily blinks as she opens the door, obviously startled awake by the bright light from the hallway spilling across his face. Her eyes flicker to his face, then up to meet Octavia’s gaze, both girls knowing exactly what Octavia had planned to do, what Clarke has just interrupted. 

“Princess?” Bellamy’s voice is thick from sleep, painfully tugging at something in Clarke’s chest. 

“Hi,” she replies, eyes still on Octavia. “Having a good night?” 

Her best friend at least has the good grace to look abashed, if only momentarily. She recovers quickly, lifting her chin defiantly as she looks Clarke straight in the eye. 

“I thought that you were staying over with your mom?” she asks, fingers playing with the collar of Bellamy’s t-shirt, a deliberate provocation that Clarke tries to ignore. 

“So did I,” Clarke replies calmly. “But Marcus brought me home.”

“Marcus?” That at least gets Bellamy fully awake, sitting up on the couch, swinging his feet to the ground. Octavia scowls as she’s dislodged, forced to sit up and away from him, but he doesn’t notice, all of his attention focused on Clarke. “He drove you back on your own? Where was your mom?”

“She drove her own car back home.”

Clarke stands there stupidly, just staring at Bellamy and Octavia on the couch.

She would have laughed - hysterically - if anyone had accused her of forgetting what she and Octavia had done to Bellamy. Ever since it happened, she’s thought of nothing else, every action, every thought and feeling tainted by the sick memory of what they did, the cracked foundation of the relationship she’s built with Bellamy, the constant, crushing awareness that she could lose it, lose everything, with one wrong word. Hours and hours wasted thinking back over the past, nursing her obsessive guilt with thoughts of what she’s done, what her friend has done, what Bellamy would or wouldn’t do if he did or didn’t find out.

But she did forget. Forget, at least, the most important thing, her eyes fixed in the wrong place, misdirected, like watching a magic trick and fixating on the cards, missing the sly hand slipping into a hidden pocket.

She’s been looking backwards, when she should have been looking forwards. 

Clarke had never even considered, never entertained the idea that Octavia might continue her little games with Bellamy. That her invitation to play was a one-time offer, a freebie, an extra thrill for Octavia, not a future requirement. That what her friend did to Bellamy in his sleep wasn’t just something Clarke had to feel guilty for - it was something that she had to _stop_. 

“I don’t feel well,” she lies. Except it’s not really a lie, because she does feel sick, if not for the reasons Bellamy might think. “I asked Marcus to bring me back because I had a headache.”

Bellamy gets up and comes over to her, puts his hand against her forehead to check her temperature.

“You don’t feel hot,” he says. He smoothes her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. Takes the opportunity to run his thumb over the sensitive skin, too quick for Octavia to see. “You don’t have a fever. Do you need anything?”

“Tea?” Clarke asks. She smiles weakly, looking up at him through her eyelashes, her best impression of a sick girl, battling through the pain. “Maybe some paracetamol?”

“Come on.” Bellamy takes her hand. “Let’s get you sorted.”

Clarke follows him meekly through the living room, but the moment his back is turned she looks at Octavia. She’s picking at her nails, sulking openly, her face dark and stormy. And then she looks up, and Clarke’s whole body turns to ice.

Earlier that evening, she’d thought that they were getting back on track, their friendship slowly repairing itself despite her lies, their shared guilt. Green shoots just visible in the wasteland, poking through the ruins. She can still feel Octavia’s arms around her, her best friend’s slender body tight against her own, the visceral relief of breathing in her familiar scent, the tickle of her thick hair against her nose. But looking at Octavia now, it’s like it never happened. There’s no love in her eyes, all affection driven out by a cold, hard anger. And underneath it, a hint of fear, buried deep, so well hidden that it’s almost impossible for anyone to see, anyone that wasn’t Clarke. 

It’s the fear that unsettles Clarke, more than the anger, the desperation that she sees in her friend’s eyes. The kind of desperation that could lead to anything, spark a fire that will burn them all down. 

Maybe earlier was a trick. Maybe it was regret. Maybe it was a moment of weakness, one final look back before the battlefield charge. Clarke can’t think about that now. Can’t think about anything except keeping her away from Bellamy. 

Bellamy only lets go of her hand to fill the kettle, setting it on the burner to heat up as he rummages through the cupboards for painkillers, fills a glass with water. His drunken haze has disappeared now that he sees a need to take care of one of his girls, completely oblivious to the silent war that’s just taken place between them. 

“Here you go,” he says, handing her two paracetamol. “Take these.”

Clarke puts them on her tongue, takes the glass of water, chokes down the pills. They stick in her throat, and she has to down the whole glass to wash away the chalky taste at the back of her mouth. 

“What else can I do?” 

“Nothing,” Clarke says. “Just…hold me?”

“Of course.”

Bellamy pulls her into his arms, wraps her up in a bear hug so tight that it’s almost hard to breathe. She nuzzles her face into his neck, relaxes her weight against him, and he rubs her back comfortingly. She lets herself enjoy it for a couple of minutes, being so close to him, both of them safe in each other’s arms. 

“Have you been drinking?” she eventually asks, carefully casual, hoping that he can’t hear the edge in her voice. 

He stiffens in her arms, his shoulders raising slightly, and loosens his grip so that he can pull back and look at her. 

“Drinking?”

“The beer bottles, by the couch,” Clarke says quietly. “You’ve been drinking?”

“Only a couple,” Bellamy replies, his brows furrowing in confusion. “I’ve been hanging out with Octavia, just chilling out. It’s been good actually, getting some time with her. I think she’s been feeling a bit left out.”

Clarke nods. “You going to drink any more?”

He shakes his head slowly, eyes fixed on her. “Wasn’t planning on it. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like it when you drink too much,” Clarke whispers. She pitches her voice baby soft and shy, opens her eyes a little wider than usual, her arms creeping up to twine around his neck. 

“You’ve never said anything before,” Bellamy questions, not quite buying it. 

Clarke shrugs, “I didn’t think it was any of my business, before.”

Bellamy softens, as she knew he would, mollified by the allusion to their relationship, the implication that their role in each other’s lives has changed, that they mean more to each other now.

“All right, princess.” His voice is warm and intimate, almost teasing. Like he’s laughing at a joke that only he gets, that Clarke isn’t in on. “You got me. I won’t drink any more tonight, okay?”

The kettle starts whistling, the sharp sound ringing through the room as the pressure builds, the water beginning to boil. 

Bellamy takes his hands off her waist, his body shifting as he starts to move away. 

“Anything else you want, while you’re being demanding?”

Clarke pulls him back, her hands tight on his collar. “Kiss me.”

His eyes flick furtively to the doorway. She knows what he’s thinking, the chances of discovery too high, Octavia only feet away. 

“Kiss you?”

“Kiss me,” Clarke says, firmly. “I want you to kiss me.”

He pauses, only for a second, before he kisses her quickly. Closed mouthed, light, over almost before it begins. 

It’s not enough. Clarke follows Bellamy when he tries to draw away, both her hands against his chest, pushing him back against the counter. He doesn’t resist, staggers back until he hits the cabinets with a muted thump, letting out a quiet grunt at the impact. The look on his face is surprised but fond, amused by her little show of force, her sudden possessiveness. Like he’s watching a kitten play-fighting, learning to pounce, all the cuter for its attempted ferocity. 

It only spurs Clarke on, wanting to wipe that indulgent smile off his face. She kisses him hard, both hands wrapped in the collar of his t-shirt, fabric wound tight around her clenched fingers, yanking him down to her height. She doesn’t let up the pace, only deepens the kiss, bites at his lower lip until he groans and submits to her, sagging down against the counter, his hands coming up to bury themselves in her hair, his cock hard when she rocks against him. Clarke reaches down and palms him through his trousers, smiling when she pulls her mouth away and he tries to pull her back to him, unwilling to let her go, tables turned. 

It’s not usually like this. They’ve fallen naturally into a certain dynamic in the bedroom, Clarke liking it when Bellamy is in charge, enjoying the thrill of not knowing what he’s going to do to her next, her body his to play with. This is the first time that she’s felt like this, the need to show him that he’s hers, that whatever power he has over her she also has over him, even if she chooses not to use it. That for every single mark he’s left on her skin, she’s left its twin on him, only deep inside, where it will never fade, never wash away.

Clarke has hurt him. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t know, if he’ll never know. The peace she finds in Bellamy’s kiss is absolution that she doesn’t deserve, her crimes unatoned, every touch a heavy weight added to the unbearable burden that she already carries. She should leave. She should stay away from him. At the very least she should be on her knees in front of him, crawling, begging for his forgiveness.

But right now, she doesn’t care. There’s only one thing that she cares about. 

He’s hers. No one else’s. 

Not even Octavia’s.

\- 

The next morning Clarke’s woken by her phone vibrating, rattling against an empty mug on Bellamy’s nightstand. Blearily, she reaches over to grab it and thumb through her notifications.

It’s a text from her mom. Thanking her for dinner, suggesting again that they do the same for her birthday. Clarke swipes right to delete the message, puts the phone back on the nightstand face down. Amazing, how her mom can distill years of past and current disappointment into less than thirty words. She’s always been incredibly efficient. 

“Anyone interesting?”

“Hmm?” Clarke snuggles back under the covers, back into Bellamy’s waiting arms. “Just my mom, thanking me for last night.”

Bellamy kisses the top of her head absently, fingers skimming the skin of her shoulder. “How was last night?” 

“It was good actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, my mom was…my mom. But Marcus was really nice.”

“Nice?” Bellamy’s tone is measured, but his fingers stop their idle movement over her skin, hand coming to rest heavily on her shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Clarke snuggles further into Bellamy’s chest. “I thought that anyone dating my mom would be boring as hell, y’know? But he was cool - he talked to me all about my art, what I’m doing at school, that kind of stuff. I have no idea what he’s doing with Abby. He’s pretty hot, he could literally have anyone.”

“Hmm…he talk to your mom at all, or just you?” 

“Bell,” Clarke leans up on her elbow, incredulous, trying to see the expression on Bellamy’s face. He shifts uncomfortably under her sudden scrutiny, face unreadable. “Are you _jealous_?”

“What, of _Marcus_?” Bellamy snorts, but he won’t meet Clarke’s eyes. “Whatever.”

“You are!” Clarke laughs, strangely delighted. “You’re jealous!”

“Yeah, right.” Bellamy slides out from underneath her, throws the covers back. “I’m gonna go shower.”

Clarke rolls onto her front and hugs the pillow as she watches him pull on his underwear, hiding her smile. He’s an idiot. Because yeah, Marcus is attractive, and maybe if she didn’t have Bellamy, she’d have a crush on her new, handsome not-quite-step-dad, but Bellamy is _Bellamy_. 

He’s got nothing to worry about. 

\- 

Clarke walks into the bedroom and stops dead. 

“Oh my god.”

Octavia’s been quiet all morning, sleeping in much later than she normally does - Bellamy had been concerned, but Clarke had stopped him from checking on her, thinking privately that his sister was probably just licking her wounds from last night. Finally she’d offered to come in and see whether Octavia was okay, sure that she’d just find her balled up under the covers, sulking. At worst, she’d been prepared for her friend to be combative, trying to provoke her into a furiously whispered fight, neither of them wanting Bell to hear the subject of their argument despite their anger. 

But this is _something else_.

Octavia’s stood in front of the mirror applying mascara, the finishing touch to a full face of expertly applied make-up. She’s wearing - _almost wearing_ , Clarke can hear her mom say disapprovingly in her head - an emerald green slip dress that struggles to reach her mid-thigh, exposing the lean length of her enviably toned legs, made to look even longer by the chunky black heels she’s wearing. The material is so thin it looks more like a negligee, cut low enough in the front to show the slight line of Octavia’s cleavage, the straps so thin that it’s obvious she isn’t wearing a bra. Her hair is up in a tight ponytail, thin gold hoop earrings emphasising the slim line of her neck, the sharp line of her collarbone. 

She looks beautiful. Stunning. Like she’s walked straight out of a music video, or off some movie producer’s arm.

 _Is this her plan?_ To openly try to seduce Bellamy, to make an open play for him where subterfuge has failed, finally staking a claim in broad daylight? It seems a bit on the nose, even for Octavia, whose idea of subtlety has always involved a sledgehammer. 

“What?” Octavia asks, finally noticing her standing in the doorway. 

“What are you doing?” Clarke asks, stunned. She belatedly takes her hand off the doorframe, realises that she’s been stood frozen in place, just staring at her friend. 

“I’m going out.” Octavia caps the mascara and puts it back in her make-up bag, leaning into the mirror to check that she hasn’t smudged anything.

Clarke relaxes for a second before her fear is replaced by a new concern.

“Yeah, not in that you’re not. Bellamy’s going to have a fit.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine.” Octavia’s voice is nonchalant. She sprays perfume - Clarke’s perfume, she notices - into the air and walks through it, scenting herself. “He’s got you to look after him, right?”

Clarke refuses to take the bait.

“O, seriously. There’s no way that Bell is going to let you go anywhere in that.”

“Don’t worry, I have a jacket.”

Octavia slips on a cropped jean jacket, the bulk of the denim only emphasising the scantiness of her dress and her petite frame underneath it, somehow making her look even more exposed, in the same way that _half-dressed_ is always sexier than _naked_. 

A strange pang of desire shoots through Clarke, unbidden and unwanted. She shoves the feeling away, rolls her eyes. “Fine. It’s your funeral.”

Octavia snorts as she walks past her. “Whatever.” 

Clarke waits, counting off silently in her head. She doesn’t make it to thirty seconds before she hears Bellamy’s voice, his shock and burgeoning anger clear despite the distance and the walls between them.

“What the hell are you wearing?”

“What does it look like I’m wearing? I’m going out.”

Clarke walks towards the sound of the two siblings arguing. The scene she finds in the hallway is a cliché, a setup so familiar from movies and TV that it’s bizarre, almost surreal to see it playing out in real life. Bellamy, eyes blazing as he takes in his little sister’s skimpy outfit, Octavia with crossed arms, her face alight with equal fury. Neither willing to back down, Octavia always giving as good as she gets, never knowingly outgunned in an argument.

“Like I’m letting you out in _that_ ,” Bellamy laughs, shaking his head. His arm shoots out as Octavia moves towards the doorway, blocking her path easily. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Octavia squares up to him, unafraid, little hands clenching into fists at her sides. “I’ve got a date, actually.”

Clarke is hurt. Octavia’s never mentioned a boy to her, let alone anything about a potential date. She knows that they’re out of touch with each other’s lives - and she can’t complain, seeing as how she’s keeping the biggest secret of all from Octavia - but it still hits her hard, that Octavia’s been hiding something like this from her, another sign that their friendship is broken, irreparable. 

Bellamy doesn’t look hurt so much as completely blindsided. He glances at Clarke over Octavia’s shoulder, and she shrugs, shakes her head. _I had no idea._

“You’ve got a date? At - ” he checks his watch. “1pm?”

“That’s your problem, big brother?” Octavia gestures in frustration, her voice cracking. “The _time_?”

Bellamy tightens his jaw, mouth thinning. 

“Who’s this date with, anyway?” Each word clipped and strained, forced past gritted teeth.

“Steve.”

Steve? Clarke can’t think of a single Steve at their school, and Octavia doesn’t exactly have the biggest social circle, hardly goes anywhere without her or Bellamy. _Who the fuck is Steve?_

Bellamy appears to be thinking along the same lines. 

“Who the fuck is Steve?”

“Steve,” Octavia says, like it’s obvious, like Bellamy should know exactly who she’s talking about. “You’ve met him.”

“I’ve definitely never met him.” 

“At the grocery store?” 

If she’s expecting everything to suddenly click into place for her brother, she’s left disappointed. There’s no hint of recognition on Bellamy’s face, just consternation, his anger only growing. 

“You’re going out with some guy that you met at a fucking grocery store? What the hell, O? What do you even know about him?”

“How much do you know about all the girls that you bring home?” Octavia doesn’t say the words. She lobs them like a shrapnel grenade at Bellamy, hoping to catch Clarke in the fallout. “At least I know Steve’s name.”

Bellamy straightens up to his full height, nostrils flaring as he stares at Octavia, incandescent with rage. She doesn’t give an inch, lifts her chin and stares back at him defiantly, even when he takes a step towards her, his hand leaving the wall to grab her wrist, big enough to wrap around it twice over. 

His sister struggles as Bellamy drags her in close, squirming pointlessly against his iron grip, clearly no hope in hell of freeing herself. Both their chests are heaving as they grapple, their eyes locked together, Octavia shoving at her brother’s shoulder with her free hand. 

“Let go of me, you dick!”

Bellamy stands firm as Octavia falls into his chest, leans down towards her, to do what Clarke doesn’t know, to shout at her maybe, to -

With perfect timing, like the moment’s been scripted, the door bell rings.

“There,” Octavia hisses at her brother, their faces only an inch apart, both still breathing heavily. “You can meet him now.”

Bellamy releases his sister instantly, and she rocks back onto her feet, stumbling on her high heels. His eyes dart to Clarke, face wild, before he flings himself around and wrenches the door open.

Clarke has to crane her neck to see around the width of Bellamy’s body. The guy standing on the other side is a complete stranger to her - dark hair shaped into a faux hawk, an unremarkable face, small grey eyes that flick nervously up to Bellamy as he looms over him. Probably only a couple of years older than her and Octavia at most, despite the stubble that he’s trying (and failing) to grow out. 

“Hey man,” he greets Bellamy. “What’s up?”

Recognition blooms in Bellamy’s eyes, although he doesn’t say a word in response. He turns his back to Steve, grabs Octavia again, this time by the arm, and pulls her into the living room, so quickly she has no time to resist.

The door slams behind them, and suddenly Clarke is left alone with Steve in the empty hallway.

“Um…hi,” he says to her. 

“Hi.” She makes no effort to engage him in conversation or invite him in, just leans back against the wall, her hands folded at the small of her back. 

They wait in an awkward silence punctuated by the occasional shuffling of Steve’s feet, the clearing of his throat. Clarke surreptitiously observes him, her unease increasing with every glance, each passing second. His jeans are baggy, ripped, cuffed, too much going on at once, a try-hard cacophony of styles, paired with dirty white sneakers and an oversized sweatshirt in block neon colours that hurt her eyes. He can’t seem to stay still for a second, nervously fiddling with his phone, shifting his body weight from one side to the other, rubbing his fingers over his already red mouth. 

His eyes dart around the hallway, lingering on Clarke, and her breasts, a little too long. She avoids eye contact, folds her arms across her chest, wishes that she was wearing something other than a tank top, although she gets the feeling that she could be wearing overalls, or a clown outfit, and still feel just as undressed with his eyes on her.

Clarke doesn’t like him. It’s not just what he’s wearing, though that admittedly doesn’t help. It’s something about him, something just slightly _off_ that triggers her sixth sense, gets her creep alarm bells ringing. She can’t believe that Octavia doesn’t feel it too. He’s not even her type. 

Every so often they hear raised voices from behind the closed living room door, the argument ebbing and flowing with no discernible end in sight. Once, they hear a pained “Octavia”, Bellamy sounding broken and exhausted.

When the siblings finally emerge, it’s clear to see who came out on top. Bellamy looks drained, while Octavia is smug and triumphant, casting a self-satisfied look at Clarke as she practically skips past her. 

“Let’s go,” she orders Steve.

Steve doesn’t answer her, raising his eyebrows as he fully takes in Octavia’s outfit, his eyes dropping to her legs and lasciviously trailing back up over her ass as she walks past him. 

Clarke looks to Bellamy, alarmed. Is he really going to let Octavia go out with this guy?

Bellamy’s eyes are hard, but he doesn’t make any move to stop his sister, just tiredly says “Back by 8, O.”

She ignores him.

“Don’t worry, man,” Steve says, gaze still on Octavia’s ass. Finally he tears his eyes away long enough to look at Bellamy. “I’ll take care of her.”

Steve turns and follows Octavia, leaving the door to slam shut behind him. 

He doesn’t notice the way that Bellamy stiffens at his words. How his eyes narrow, his hands balling into fists before he catches himself, consciously unfurls his fingers, lets out his breath in one long exhale. 

“Hey,” Clarke says softly, putting her hand on his arm, feeling how on edge he is, all the tension in his tight muscles. “Don’t worry. She’ll be alright.”

\- 

After Octavia leaves, Bellamy pulls himself away from Clarke and goes to the kitchen, where he pours himself a cup of coffee and sits down at the table, brooding. He resists all her attempts at conversation, looking through her, staring into the middle distance like he doesn’t even really register that she’s there. 

Clarke doesn’t want to push. There’s something raw and painful in his eyes, and she’s scared that if she pushes too much, he’ll break. 

So she leaves him sitting there and goes to take a long, hot shower, try to wash away the morning and the night before and the evening before that. She’s feeling a little raw too, to be honest, all the events of the past 24 hours blending together into one big mess that she doesn’t know how to fight her way out of.

Clarke can’t remember the girl that she’d been before she fucked Bellamy, but she’s sure that her life had been a hell of a lot simpler. 

After she gets out of the shower, she brushes out her hair, moisturises, pulls on a pair of sweatpants and one of Bellamy’s old t-shirts with a big hole in the collar. She doesn’t bother with underwear, any of her new and slightly uncomfortable lingerie. Somehow, Clarke doesn’t think that she’ll be doing much of anything today - aside from waiting for Octavia to get home, dreading the inevitable second round of this morning’s argument. If Bellamy needs space, that’s fine. She’ll do some homework, tackle the pile of neglected assignments that’s been steadily growing since she started spending all her spare time on Bellamy’s dick. 

Clarke expects Bellamy to be in the kitchen for a while, but when she goes to make a cup of tea he’s gone. She’s just about to panic when she hears the familiar _thwack_ of his fists against the punching bag, pulls aside the curtains above the sink to see him pummelling the bag, each strike ringing loudly through the back yard. It’s windy outside, the branches of the tree swaying, the rustling sound of the leaves adding to the sense of frenetic motion, Bellamy’s movements wild and agitated. 

She lets the curtain fall back into place, turns her attention to the kettle.

Clarke sorts through the teabags in the cabinet above the sink, looking for something soothing. Green tea. Jasmine. Mint. Camomile and lavender. Absorbed, she doesn’t notice when the noises from the back yard stop, doesn’t register the creak of the back door, the heavy tread of footsteps behind her. 

Until she turns around, and walks straight into Bellamy. 

“Bell?”

He’s breathing hard, dripping with sweat, damp hair curling around his face. His eyes are wild, magnetic, holding Clarke in place as he reaches up and frames her face with both of his big hands, stroking his thumbs over her cheeks, achingly slow. 

Clarke can barely breathe as she looks at him.

When Bellamy first kisses her, it’s gentle. Excruciatingly gentle, handling her like she’s made of glass, something delicate and precious, easily broken. He coaxes her mouth open gradually, one of his hands sinking into her still wet hair, the softest pull of his fingers to get her face tipping up to meet his. She reaches up, puts her hands on his broad shoulders, kissing him back as sweetly as she knows how, every tender touch returned in kind. The kiss is hypnotic, slowness belying its intensity. Clarke feels as though she’s falling, sinking into him, drowning in warm, still water. As easy and terrifying as falling asleep. 

“I love you,” he whispers into her mouth. 

“I love you too,” she whispers, head falling back as he kisses along the length of her neck.

When Clarke runs her hands over Bellamy’s shoulders, she feels all the tension vibrating through him, just beneath the surface. His boxing exercises have done nothing to dispel the energy coursing through his body - if anything, he feels even worse than he had earlier, like all he’s managed to do is work himself up more, excess tension spilling over into little aftershocks that make him shake as he kisses his way over her neck, her throat, the sensitive spot just below her ear. He’s at breaking point. 

If this was anyone else, she’d be scared. Clarke knows that. Everything about the man in front of her right now screams danger, signals alarm, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling up. But she can’t be scared of Bellamy, doesn’t know _how_ to be scared of him; the child that adopted her, the boy that raised her, the man that loves her. She wants this, wants him, whatever his form, whatever his fears.

“Fuck me.”

Bellamy stops, his mouth stilling against her throat. “What?”

She replies quickly, before she loses her nerve. “You heard me.” 

There’s one long, agonising beat where Clarke worries that she’s misread the situation, shame flooding through her, red hot in her cheeks where a blush is already beginning to bloom. Bellamy doesn’t move, his breath tickling her skin as he shakily exhales. 

And then he growls, and then he’s kissing her again, except this time it’s anything but gentle, the exact opposite of slow, so perfectly what she wants that Clarke could cry. She almost falls back under the force of it, his hands tight in her hair for one glorious, burning second before they roughly make their way down her body, her back, her ass. Bellamy hauls her up and into him, forcing her onto her tip-toes in a desperate bid to keep her balance as she’s pulled tight against his body, his cock hard against her stomach. 

Clarke moans, digging her nails into his shoulders, and Bellamy smiles against her mouth. 

“That what you need, princess? Need me to fuck you?”

“Yes,” she gasps out, nodding frantically, whining as he gets his hands down the back of her sweatpants, on her bare ass, pulling her up even closer against him.

Bellamy groans. “No panties, baby? Look at you, no underwear, my clothes, a fucking wet dream, aren’t you?”

He frees one hand to yank up the front of her ( _his_ ) t-shirt and expose her breasts, her nipples drawing tight in the cold air of the kitchen. She’s left brutally caught between his hands, bent back obscenely over his arm as he works her breasts over with his mouth, the fabric of her t-shirt twisted up over her chest and held in his clenched fist.

All traces of his earlier gentleness are gone, swept away in the rough caress of his tongue over her breasts, the tug of his teeth on her nipples, the marks he bites and sucks into her pale skin.

Bellamy hums with satisfaction as he nurses a bruise into the underside of her left breast, Clarke’s nerves tingling in pleasure-pain as blood rushes to the surface of her skin. 

“You too,” she manages to gasp, crying out as he trails his mouth back over to her nipple, his eyes on her face, hungrily watching her reaction. “You too, Bell.”

Clarke tugs at his collar and he gets the hint, reluctantly releases her so that he can step back and pull off his t-shirt, static shocking his hair into a cloud of wild curls and tangles. She pulls off her own top, her swollen nipples wet and sensitive against his bare chest as she lunges up to kiss him frantically, her hands scrabbling at his belt, fighting to work the buckle with shaking fingers. Bellamy doesn’t help, just watches her struggle, biting his lip when she finally manages to get his jeans open, pushes them down off his slim hips along with his underwear.

She drops to her knees unsteadily. She’s gone down on him a thousand times by now but it’s always a little intimidating at first, the sheer size of his cock up close like this, trying to remember how she’s ever managed to fit it in her mouth, why she ever thought that this would be a good idea. Clarke glances up, and something must show in her face this time because Bellamy reaches down and carefully smoothes her hair back off her face, using his fingers to comb it into the rough approximation of a ponytail and winding it around his fist. The tight grip reassures her, grounds her, and she wraps her hand around his cock, fingers not quite touching around the width of it, kneels up so that she can reach the hard length of him with her mouth. 

Newly confident, Clarke licks a broad stripe up the underside of his dick to get him wet, circles her tongue around the head as she starts to stroke him with a firm grip. Bellamy likes it when she makes a mess of him; she keeps her mouth loose and a little sloppy as she basically makes out with his cock, licking over the thick shaft with the fluttering flat of her tongue, sucking clumsy kisses over the head, flicking her tongue into the tiny slit at the top until he moans, thigh muscles tensing. Spit and pre-come coats his cock as she moves her hand up and down the shaft, the noise more and more obscene with every pass of her fist, and it’s an easy slide when she finally takes him into her mouth, sinks down until he hits the back of her throat. She moans around the thick length of him, the noise vibrating through his cock. 

Suddenly Bellamy’s hand tightens in her hair, pulling her off him. She sits back on her ankles, gasping for breath. 

“You like this?”

The words sound torn from his sandpaper throat, like it physically hurts him to interrupt her, his hand flexing in her hair as if he wants nothing more than to let her go, let her do whatever she wants to him. But Clarke can read him like a book by now, knows exactly why he’s stopped her, the real question that sits soft in his eyes. 

She nods, as much as she can with his firm grip holding her immobile. 

“Fuck, yeah you do,” Bellamy says, not missing a beat. He bends down to run his thumb over her mouth, her spit-wet lips. “So pretty, aren’t you baby, with your mouth on me. You wanna put it back?”

Clarke doesn’t answer, deep in that place where words don’t matter, their definitions slippery and intangible, no meaning to anything that isn’t her hands on him, his hands on her. She tries to lean forward, testing his hold on her, wriggling in his grasp when he doesn’t let go. 

“Gotta do better than that, princess.” Bellamy’s voice is thick. “You want it?”

He reaches down with his free hand and grabs his cock, slowly stroking up and down, thumb flicking over the head on the upstroke. His big hand encircles it easily, nowhere near the struggle that it is for Clarke, moving with a casual ease that makes her mouth water. 

Clarke swallows. It takes all her effort to speak, to consciously recall all the scattered pieces of her mind, all her lost and fragmented sense. 

“Yes.” Her voice is husky, unrecognisable, even to herself. 

Bellamy smiles, loosening his grip enough that she can rise back up onto her knees, get in close. Clarke leans in and opens her mouth wide, lets him lightly slap the head of his cock against the flat of her tongue, the wet, dirty sound echoing through the room. He groans, eyes fixed on the sight, his hips jerking forward involuntarily before he can stop himself. The skidding slide of his cock across her tongue is a tease, nowhere near as deep as they both want it, and Clarke whines in disappointment when he pulls back. 

“Fuck.”

He thrusts back into her mouth, this time on purpose, steady and restrained, groaning again when Clarke tilts her head and relaxes her throat, swallowing him down. Still, he only lets himself slide in halfway before he retreats, his hand tightening in her hair to stop her following the movement of his hips, in complete control. 

It goes on like that, Bellamy slowly building up the pace, giving her a little more of his cock each time until she’s taking all of him into her throat. 

“So good, baby,” he praises her. “That’s my girl, doing so well for me, huh?”

Clarke closes her eyes, losing herself to the feel of it, like floating. She doesn’t know how long she stays there, time measured only by the smooth, heavy glide of his cock in her mouth; the growing tingling in her lips from the friction; the warm ache building in her throat; the thrilling, fleeting tightness in her chest every time she swallows him all the way down. 

She’s only startled out of her haze when Bellamy finally pulls out of her mouth, dazedly blinking up at him, lazily indignant. His breathing is almost as wrecked as hers, and his hand trembles when he lets go of her hair. 

“Come on,” he says, offering his freed hand to help her up off the ground. She takes it gratefully, shaking her head to clear it. “Come with me.”

Clarke follows him easily. She assumes that he’s taking her to his bedroom, thinks that he’s going to lie her down gently on his bed and lovingly wear her out, fuck her until they’re both too exhausted and sated to move. Until he’s too tired to even remember what happened with Octavia, until all his anger has burned away, leaving behind nothing but their sore muscles and an ache in her jaw. 

But she’s wrong. 

At first she’s confused when Bellamy stops in the living room, when he lets her hand fall, making his way over to the couch. She watches, uncomprehending, brow wrinkling as he sits down. Wonders what he’s doing, waiting impatiently for him to return to her, to finish what they’ve started.

The full, horrified realisation of what he means to do only hits her when he opens his arms, motioning for her to come and join him. 

“Come sit on me, baby.”

She feels faint. Instantly dizzy, like the world is spinning away from her, sound receding until there’s nothing but her own unsteady breath, her heartbeat thudding heavily in her ears, like she’s underwater. Panic flooding her body, mixing uneasily with her desire.

“Clarke?” Bellamy asks, oblivious. His brow furrows as he reaches out to her, waiting for her to take his hand. 

She wavers, wanting to step back, yet somehow not able to look away. She can’t tear her eyes away from the sight of Bellamy sat on the couch, can’t stop the avalanche of memories that crash over her, taking her under. Taking her back to that night.

_Bellamy, asleep, his lean body stretched out along the couch. The forbidden thrill of seeing him like this, someone so known made unknown, a whole new landscape to explore in the safety of darkness. Her fingers twitching, longing to trace over the lines of his sleeping face, relaxed and defenceless, made soft by the blind trust of sleep. Octavia, pulling the blanket off her brother’s body, one silencing finger held to her lips._

“Come here, princess,” Bellamy coaxes her. His voice is encouraging, soothing. “Don’t you want to come and sit in my lap?”

It’s only a handful of steps over to the couch, but it feels like the longest walk of Clarke’s life. 

One step.

_He knows._

Another step.

_How could he know?_

She focuses on Bellamy’s face as she walks towards him. There’s no trace of anger or betrayal, none of the shocked horror or disgust that she’d expect to see if he knew. No distressed edge to his voice, none of the coldness that she hears in her nightmares.

 _It’s just a coincidence_ , she tells herself firmly. _He doesn’t know._

“There you are,” he says once she’s finally standing in front of him. He’s got one hand on his cock, leisurely stroking, and Clarke feels desire pulse through her once again, her need for him outweighing her panic. Just like before, lust overcoming reason, left willing to pay any price if it means that she gets to have him, in any way that she can.

_There’s no way that he can know._

Heart hammering in her chest, she bends over to take off her sweatpants. Bellamy lets go of his cock as she straightens up, puts his hands on her hips to draw her closer to him, leaning in to place a kiss against the slight curve of her tummy.

“Gorgeous.”

Slowly, Clarke lifts one foot off the floor and rests her knee on the couch cushion, just to the side of his hips. She has to put her hands on his shoulders for balance as she lifts her other foot, the sagging couch cushions providing almost no support as she climbs clumsily on top of him, holding herself high up on her knees over his lap. 

_Awkwardly climbing on top of him, holding her breath, trying not to jostle his body, terrified of waking him. One hand clinging to the back of the couch as she gets herself into position, thigh muscles trembling from a combination of fear and strain, the couch cushions lumpy and uncomfortable under her knees._

Bellamy takes a hand off her hip to grab his cock, holding it steady for her. Waiting patiently for her to sink down, fuck herself down onto him, give them what they’re both waiting for, desperate for. What they’re both risking everything for. 

_Octavia, holding her brother’s cock at just the right angle, waiting for her to lower herself down onto it. Her little hands, looking even smaller wrapped around the girth of his dick, handling him with all the ease of possession._

What she’s already risked everything for.

Clarke closes her eyes, overtaken by memory, by guilt. 

“Open your eyes,’ Bellamy whispers softly. Dimly, as if from a great distance, she feels his hands cupping her face, his fingers lightly caressing across her cheeks, trying to get her to open her eyes. “Open your eyes, look at me.”

She shakes her head, hands tightening on his shoulders. Looking at him is impossible, memory so close and clear that there’s no way that he won’t see it in her eyes, see right through her to the awful truth of what she’s done, etched forever on her conscience.

“Look at me, please.”

It’s the love in Bellamy’s voice that gives Clarke the courage to open her eyes. The same love that she then sees in his burning gaze, so intense that her breath catches in her chest.

It’s all there in his eyes, painfully exposed, all laid out for her. Love, and desire and need and pain and fear - so much emotion that it’s overflowing, messy, too much for one person to ever contain, to begin to understand. Inconceivable, unbelievable that a person could possibly hold so much within themselves, feel so much and hope to survive. Far too much for one person to bear alone. 

But not too much, maybe, for two people to bear together.

Clarke lowers herself onto his cock slowly, steadily looking into his eyes the whole way down. 

She’s not scared to look at him now. Not when everything she’s feeling is already there in his eyes, reflected back at her. 

She moans as she sits down on his cock, taking him easily, a familiar slide that’s so good it leaves her shaking by the time that she’s finally settled in his lap. They both groan as she shifts her hips, feeling him thick inside her, so deep that it almost hurts, impossibly full. 

“Feels so good, huh?” Bellamy whispers, his hands back in her hair, combing it back off her face, like he can’t keep them away. “My girl, always so perfect around my cock.”

Clarke grinds down, greedily seeking out that last little bit of him, that perfect aching stretch that makes her eyelids flutter. It feels amazing, teasing friction against her clit, cunt so full she can’t remember what it ever felt like to be empty, but it’s still not quite what she wants. She whines as she rocks against him, confused as to why Bellamy’s not moving too, why he’s not thrusting up into her like she needs.

“I know, I know,” Bellamy hushes her, tracing his fingers over her sulkily pouting lips. “Just want you to ride me for a bit, okay? Let me see you ride me, princess, like I know you can.”

His hands fall down to her hips, gently coaxing her to move, a slow dirty roll that feels _illegal_ it’s so good, the full length of his hard cock rubbing against every inch of her cunt, her clit bumping into his pelvic bone with every movement.

Clarke flushes, remembering the first time that she ever rode him, right her on this couch. How clumsy and uncoordinated her movements had been, no idea what to do except blindly chase what felt good, no rhythm or logic to her actions, just a messy, stumbling climb towards a peak that even then she knew would change her forever. 

God, part of her is even glad that he was asleep, grateful that he wasn’t awake to witness her embarrassing display of inexperience.

“Come on, I know you can do better than that.”

Hesitantly, Clarke lifts herself up a little on his cock, lowers herself gradually, carefully. She wobbles on the descent despite her efforts, Bellamy’s hands on her hips the only thing that lends her movements any grace, stops her falling back into his lap.

“Good girl.” Bellamy smiles, and she lets out a breathless laugh, weirdly proud of herself. She leans over and kisses him before she settles back onto his lap, commits herself to her task.

Clarke rides him. Tentative, a little faltering, biting her lip as she concentrates on maintaining a steady rhythm. Focusing on the slow ascent, pulling off his cock reluctantly, and then the faster descent, the welcome shock of sudden fullness and pressure against her clit, a little more each time, but never quite enough, never quite as hard as she wants it. Her thigh muscles tire quickly, a combination of the unfamiliar movement and the effort it takes to hold back, keep her motions smooth and fluid, not wanting to embarrass herself by revealing her desperation, her humiliating lack of control.

It gets more difficult as the pleasure builds, both their breath coming a little faster in their chests, skin damp with sweat, her grip on Bellamy’s shoulders starting to slip. Clark wants more, her frantic need demanding frantic motion, barely resisting the temptation to simply slam down onto his cock, to take what he’s refusing to give. It takes all of her willpower to restrain the urge, gritting her teeth as she moves her hips nice and slow, determined to show him how good she can be, how well she can do this for him. How grown up she can be. 

It’s not long before Bellamy’s hands start wandering over her body, amusing himself, playing with her, little touches that make it difficult to focus on her movements, obviously designed to drive her insane. He cups and caresses her breasts, thumbs flickering over her nipples, ducking down to try and catch the sensitive peaks in his mouth as she bounces on him, nipping at her with his teeth, smiling when she cries out. Clarke has to grit her teeth whenever his hands move lower down, fleeting half-touches and teases to her clit, pulling away as soon as she gets used to any one feeling. 

Still, she maintains control. 

She only loses it when she realises that Bellamy’s eyes aren’t on her face anymore - he’s looking down to where their bodies are joined, eyes fixed on the wet, pink stretch of her pussy around him. Clarke looks down too, groaning at the sight, obscenely beautiful, and she can’t stop herself from thrusting down hard onto him, grinding against him, her nails digging into his skin at the shock of the impact, how it sets every single one of her nerves alight. 

“Yeah, that’s it,” Bellamy’s eyes flick back up to hers, huffing out a laugh, his grin wide and triumphant, like this is really what he wanted all along. He’s got both hands on her breasts, rubbing circles over her nipples, already so hard they’re throbbing, aching. “Come on baby, show me how you like it.”

Clarke shakes her head, desperate to be good, but despite herself she starts to speed up anyway, her hard-won rhythm disintegrating, lost in the clash of their bodies together, so excruciatingly close to what she really wants. Bellamy doesn’t help at all, his hands moving down to her ass, goading her to go faster, face lighting up with furious joy as she starts to fall apart on top of him, her defences crumbling. 

“There we are,” Bellamy sits up to kiss her, hands tightening on her buttocks, pulling her harder onto him. She whines into his mouth at the change in angle, the extra pressure on her clit. He thrusts up into her, but it’s just a tease more than anything, spurring her to move faster, nowhere near hard enough to really count. “That’s all yours, isn’t it babe? Get it, come on.”

Clarke’s shocked when Bellamy suddenly spanks her, his big hand coming down on her ass with a resounding slap, not enough force behind it to hurt, intended only to make her yelp, humiliated and so turned on she doesn’t know what to do with herself. 

Soon she’s slick with sweat, hair sticking to her wet face as she moves, all intention of rhythm completely forgotten, fucking down onto him so hard that she can hear the slick impact when their bodies come together, too far gone to care. She’s barely lifting herself off him now, only rising up so that she can immediately slam back down again, circling her hips frantically in an attempt to get some friction on her clit.

She wants to come, needs an end to the relentless climb of mounting pleasure, but she can’t touch herself, not when she needs both her hands to balance herself, her legs too tired to be entirely trusted. She’s stuck, left hanging, out on the edge with no way down.

Clarke pulls at Bellamy’s hair, a silent request for more, a plea for mercy that he pretends not to understand at first.

“What’s wrong, princess? You need something from me?” 

She nods, clinging to him, desperate and ready to do anything, admit to anything if he’ll just fuck her like she needs. 

“You need me to take care of you, huh?” Bellamy reaches up and pushes her sweaty hair off her face, completely infuriating. Clarke turns her head and bites at his hand, enraged, and he laughs. 

“Okay sweetheart.”

Finally, _finally_ , Bellamy’s hands move back down to her hips, his grip almost tight enough to bruise as he thrusts upwards. Clarke shouts out, almost sobbing with relief as he starts to fuck her, slamming up into her with so much force that she has to hang on to him, his hands on her hips the only thing that stops her being thrown off completely. 

“No one else can take of you like this, can they, princess? Huh? Who else do you think could take care of you like this? You think Marcus could take care of you like this?”

Bellamy’s eyes are wild, filthy words forced out between powerful thrusts of his hips, his chest heaving.

He spanks her again, a little harder this time. 

Clarke shakes her head, almost biting through her lip as her orgasm builds, her hand on her clit, the pleasure almost unbearable this close to coming, tension drawing so tight that she’s worried she’ll break before it does, worried that she’ll be completely undone, driven insane by it. 

“That’s right.” Bellamy’s hands are back tight in her hair, dragging her in close, so close that their foreheads touch, close enough that he’s speaking against her lips, each tender, dirty word a kiss. “Just me, right? Only I can take care of you the way that you need. Only I can take care of my girls the way that they need.”

Clarke shuts her eyes as her orgasm hits her, can’t handle looking into his full eyes, can’t handle his words, his thrusts, the feelings coursing through her. Can’t handle any of it. She cries out, her voice breaking as she comes, one hand pulling at Bellamy’s hair.

Somewhere in the depth of her disintegration, she realises that she’s crying.

She’s still coming when the world suddenly moves around her, Bellamy flipping them on the couch so that she’s on her back on the cushions, him on top of her. Somehow his cock never leaves her, and she cries out again as he drives into her with renewed force, her legs coming up automatically around his hips. 

Bellamy fucks her so hard that Clarke thinks she might fall apart. Punishing thrusts that make her cunt and her heart ache, staring up into his painful, desperate eyes. She’s sensitive after coming, and she moans, a guttural sound from somewhere deep in her chest, stunned to feel another orgasm building already.

“Bell,” she gasps. Her hands are frantic on his body, pushing him away, pulling him closer. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Bellamy says. He doesn’t stop moving inside her, doesn’t let up for a second, no relief for either of them. His eyes are wet too, she notices. Maybe sweat, maybe tears. “Baby, please, I know that you can.”

Strange, how it almost sounds like he’s the one begging her. 

He gets his hand down between them, and it only takes the suggestion of his hand against her over sensitised clit before she’s coming again, sobbing, wrecked.

 _I was wrong_ , she thinks. _I can’t survive this._

Bellamy’s rhythm falters, and she thinks that he’s going to come in her, but at the last moment he pulls out and kneels up over her body, his hand on his cock. It’s only a second before she feels the warm flood of him coming on her tits, her chest still shaking from her own orgasm.

“Fuck,” he gasps out, hand gradually slowing down, riding out the final waves of his orgasm. “Fuck.”

Bellamy collapses down onto her. He’s dead weight, completely spent, no energy left to even support his own weight, his come smearing messily between them. He nuzzles into the curve of her neck, panting, and she wraps her arms around him, closing her eyes.

Clarke feels used. She feels more loved than she’s ever felt in her life. 

She doesn’t know what to feel.

“I love you,” Bellamy murmurs into her neck. “I love you so much.”

_Neither of us are going to survive this._

“I know,” Clarke replies, stroking her hand over his hair. Her heartbeat finally, blessedly, beginning to slow. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Good news! Due to my complete inability to regulate my writing, the sleep series is now going to be seven parts instead of six! (At least, I think that counts as good news ;) )
> 
> Come shout at me on tumblr: https://star-sky-earth.tumblr.com/


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